Payments on Gyokuro Timehttps://gyokuro.dev/en/tags/payments/Recent content in Payments on Gyokuro TimeGyokuro Timehttps://gyokuro.dev/images/gyokuro-avatar.pnghttps://gyokuro.dev/images/gyokuro-avatar.pngHugo -- 0.147.9enThu, 09 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0900Who lent to Zentoshin? A payment agent's collapse and the regional banks it took downhttps://gyokuro.dev/en/posts/zentoshin-plumbing/Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0900https://gyokuro.dev/en/posts/zentoshin-plumbing/<p>Few people had heard of the company that went bankrupt on 6 July. Zentoshin, a credit-card settlement agent in Osaka, was no household name. Yet it sat beneath the cash flow of restaurants and the night-time economy across Japan, working as their plumbing. Its liabilities came to about ¥125.9bn (roughly $790m), the largest corporate failure of the year and the first above ¥100bn since Drone Net in December 2025 (<a href="https://www.tdb.co.jp/report/bankruptcy/flash/5242/">TDB</a>, <a href="https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/news/tsr/detail/1203018_1521.html">TSR</a>). Its collapse pulled a scatter of regional banks down with it.</p>