Who owns Kakao Pay?
Kakao Pay is not wholly owned by any single company recorded here: Kakao (South Korea, KRX: 035720) holds a 46.1% stake.[1]
Evidence: Kakao Company Presentation, February 2026, Kakao Corp, 1 February 2026. Last checked .
Key facts
- Largest stakeholder
- Kakao Corp. (46.1% stake) reported
- Headquarters
- 🇰🇷 South Korea, Jeju
- Origin
- 🇰🇷 South Korea
- Founded
- 2017
- Category
- Internet & digital › Digital services › Payments
- Parent ticker
- KRX: 035720
- Last verified
- · 1 sources
About Kakao Pay
Kakao Pay is the group's payments and financial technology arm, set up in 2017 and listed separately in 2021. Kakao holds 46.1 per cent of it, so it is a minority holding rather than outright ownership, though Kakao consolidates it. It is one of the two businesses, with Kakao Mobility, that Kakao names as the drivers of growth outside KakaoTalk advertising.
Ownership timeline of Kakao Pay
Where Kakao Pay sits in Kakao
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Kakao ownership tree →
See the full Kakao brand portfolio (6) →
Other brands owned by Kakao
Kakao controls 7 brands on Brandtree, 6 of them in internet & digital.
Also in internet & digital
Founded in the 2010s
- Kakao Friends (2012)
Other brands in payments, and who owns them
The 36 brands in payments on Brandtree belong to 19 owners. The largest is PayPal, with 4.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| GoPay | GoTo | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
| Kaspi Alaqan | Kaspi.kz | 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan |
| Braintree | PayPal | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Afterpay | Block | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Rakuten Card | Rakuten | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| AzamPay | Bakhresa | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
| GrabPay | Grab | 🇸🇬 Singapore |
| Mercado Crédito | MercadoLibre | 🇺🇾 Uruguay |
About the owner: Kakao
Kakao is a publicly listed company headquartered in Jeju, South Korea.
Kakao is the South Korean internet group built around KakaoTalk, a messaging app with 49 million monthly users in a country of 52 million, and it monetises that position through advertising, gifting and commerce inside the app. Around it sit partly owned subsidiaries covering mobility, payments, banking, music streaming, webtoons and games, most of which Kakao holds well short of outright. Consolidated revenue reached a record 8.1 trillion won in 2025. Its web portal Daum, long the group's second pillar, was separated out as AXZ and left the group; it is absent from Kakao's February 2026 ownership chart.
🇰🇷 Kakao Pay and other South Korean brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 185 brands that began in South Korea. 7 of them (4%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Kakao Pay is not one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Kakao Pay?
No single company recorded here owns Kakao Pay outright. Kakao holds a 46.1% stake.
Does Kakao control Kakao Pay?
No. A 46.1% holding does not give control, so Kakao shares ownership with others.
Where did Kakao Pay come from?
Kakao Pay originated in South Korea in 2017.
Sources (1) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Kakao Company Presentation, February 2026 — Kakao Corp., Official document, published 1 February 2026; retrieved 28 September 2026.
Report a correction Opens a pre-filled GitHub issue. See our corrections policy.