[Inquiry-Based Learning] A company with 5 billion yen in annual sales shook 200,000 stores—The "invisible financial infrastructure" revealed by the bankruptcy of Zentoshin

I saw the news and had to do a double-take.
Total liabilities of approximately 115 billion yen.
The company that went bankrupt was called "Zentoshin."
I am embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of this company before.
"So, another company has gone bankrupt."
At first, that was the extent of my understanding.
However, as I started to look into it, surprising facts emerged one after another.
Annual sales were about 5 billion yen.
It was by no means a giant corporation.
Yet, it was used by over 200,000 member stores, and the government requested exceptional funding support for financial institutions.
Why would a company with 5 billion yen in annual sales affect businesses all over Japan?
The answer lay in a world we usually don't think about: "payment infrastructure."
"Sales are there, but the money doesn't come in."
Zentoshin is a payment processing company.
When we use credit cards or QR code payments at a store, money moves behind the scenes in the following flow:
Card company
↓
Payment processing company
↓
Member store
We are usually unaware of this mechanism because sales proceeds are deposited a few days later.
However, things change when a payment processing company stops.
The business is operating.
Sales are being made.
Yet, the cash just doesn't come in.
"There are sales, but there is no money."
For a restaurant, there is no situation more terrifying than this.
They become unable to pay rent, labor costs, or supply costs.
That is likely why the government requested funding support for financial institutions.
What they were trying to protect was not just one company, but the hundreds of thousands of businesses connected beyond it.
An era where "networks" have more value than sales
Here, I noticed something even stranger.
Annual sales of about 5 billion yen.
It is not that large of a company.
But in reality, it supported payments on the scale of hundreds of billions of yen and connected over 200,000 stores.
This is a structure not often seen in the manufacturing industry.
They don't own factories.
They don't make products.
Yet, their influence on society is extremely large.
What created the value was not the "size of the company," but "being at the center of a network."
Even bigger incidents have happened in the world
"Does something similar happen overseas?"
When I thought that and looked it up, I arrived at the Wirecard incident that occurred in Germany in 2020.
Wirecard at the time was:
・A leading German fintech company
・A DAX 30 listed company
・A company with over 250,000 member stores worldwide
・A giant corporation with sales of about 300 billion yen
However, suddenly,
"1.9 billion euros in cash does not exist."
The fact was revealed.
At first, I couldn't believe it.
"Can such a thing happen?"
However, it was alleged that cash that did not actually exist had been recorded on the books for many years, and the company collapsed all at once.
It was shocking precisely because it was Germany
What made this incident particularly impressive was that it happened in "Germany."
When I think of Germany, I think of:
Quality control.
Solid craftsmanship.
Strict rules.
I have that kind of image.
That is why I was surprised that a massive accounting fraud incident occurred.
When I looked further, Wirecard was expected to be a "company aiming to be the Visa of Europe" and was highly regarded by the government and the market.
Because those expectations were so high, it is said that the atmosphere of "wanting to believe in a star company" worked more strongly than the voices pointing out the fraud.
This is not just a story about Germany.
Enron, Olympus, Toshiba...
Even if the countries are different, the human psychology of "wanting to believe in a success story" may be common.
Fintech is not the danger
What I learned from this inquiry is:
It is not fintech that is dangerous.
I think it is that mechanisms such as:
Audits,
Governance,
Regulations,
cannot keep up with technological progress.
Modern society is built on "invisible infrastructure" such as:
Cloud,
AI,
GPS,
Data centers,
Payment networks.
We are usually not even aware of their existence.
However, once they stop, the whole of society shakes.
This is likely a new era of infrastructure, a little different from electricity and water.
There is real interest behind the news
At first, it was just one bankruptcy news story.
But as I looked into it, one piece of news connected to various themes, including:
Finance,
Payments,
Fintech,
Governance,
Audit systems,
And even human cognitive bias.
It is packed with various side dishes, just like a bento box.