Why Japan's Banks, Card Issuers and Insurers Are Chasing Oshi-Katsu
Credit cards with an oshi on the front. Insurance for the cost of getting to a live show. Savings accounts that come with character goods. In Japan, where fans call their favorite person or character an oshi and their support oshi-katsu (“oshi activity”), banks, card issuers and insurers now sell all three, and each product is built around a different moment in a fan’s life.
It isn’t only startups making the move. Megabanks, regional banks, major card companies, a subsidiary of a nonlife insurer, an airline-affiliated micro short-term insurer: firms of every type and size began putting “oshi-katsu” into product and organization names at nearly the same time. Here is why finance came, using the industry’s structure and cases from the past year.
Background: How to Read “¥3.5 to ¥4.1 Trillion”
Estimates of the oshi-katsu market include a column from Japan’s Ministry of Finance, “Economic Trend 137: Oshi-Katsu, a Form of Consumption Growing Fast Among the Young” (in Japanese; 2025), and several others. They put the market at about ¥3.5 trillion to ¥4.1 trillion (roughly $23 billion to $27 billion) and the number of people doing oshi-katsu at about 13.84 million to 19.4 million. Surveyors and definitions differ, and there is no single confirmed figure. Writing “a ¥4 trillion market” as one line in a proposal is a risky citation.
Even so, what moved financial firms was less the market size than behavioral data for each customer. In July 2026, Credit Saison, one of Japan’s major card companies, released internal data showing that oshi-katsu customers use its cards 3.9 times as often, with 3.9 times the annual spend, as other customers (Mynavi News, in Japanese). Nikkin, a financial industry newspaper, also reported on the company’s collab cards under the headline “Effect is up to 7x.”
- 3.9x
- Usage frequency and annual spend, versus other customers
The draw is customer behavior, not the size of the market.
Source: Mynavi News (in Japanese)
A race to lift reward rates from 0.5% to 1.0% stops paying at some point. “I won’t cancel because my oshi is on the card” sits outside price competition. That single point is why finance came to oshi-katsu.
Card Companies: Lowering Acquisition Cost With Emotion
Credit Saison Creates an “Oshi-Katsu Section” and Commits ¥10 Billion
- Aim: Make oshi-katsu a permanent part of the company, an area of long-term co-creation with IP holders (the rights owners of a franchise, artist or character) rather than a one-off collab project
- What they did: Credit Saison announced that it would create a cross-functional “Oshi-Katsu Section” (a ka, a working unit inside a department) in its payments business, effective August 1, 2026. Its five-year vision is to support 100 IPs, gain 1 million new cardholders, and invest more than ¥10 billion (roughly $67 million)
- Our take: The company estimates the cost of acquiring a member at ¥10,000 to ¥20,000, and ¥10 billion divided by 1 million people works out to ¥10,000. That makes this less an emotional bet than a decision to move existing advertising money into a contest over acquisition cost. For IP holders, the card company is no longer an advertiser but a co-venture partner at the negotiating table.
SAISON CARD Digital
- Aim: Treat card issuance as the start of a fan experience, not its end, linking the live show and the merchandise purchase in one continuous flow
- What they did: A fully numberless digital card with newly drawn artwork by the artist Ado. Applications run from July 4, 2026 to June 30, 2028, and issuance was announced to begin in turn from mid-August 2026; online use is possible in as little as 5 minutes after applying. Member-only collab goods tied to “Ado STADIUM LIVE 2026 Ao” were also prepared (Visa press release, in Japanese)
- Our take: The point is that the card face is digital. A physical card takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to arrive and misses the heat of show day. “Apply in 5 minutes” puts the moment of highest emotion and the acquisition of a payment method on the same day.
Nudge Raises ¥1.5 Billion to Sell Its System
- Aim: Go beyond growing its own cards and sell its oshi-katsu credit card know-how to other businesses
- What they did: Nudge Inc., with more than 200 card designs and more than 150 partners, raised ¥1.5 billion (roughly $10 million) to expand its “Credit Card as a Service” business (Nikkei, in Japanese)
- Our take: A sign that oshi-katsu credit cards are shifting from a special product few companies can make to one where you buy in the issuing mechanism. Nudge has handled a card for the voice actor Yuki Kaji (issuance began February 2025) and a VTuber-linked card (May 2025) whose face can be a screenshot from a YouTube live stream. The card face has moved from “design” to “fan experience,” and that shift is now an asset Nudge can sell.
Banks: Adding IP to Plain Products
Banks think differently from card companies. Rather than build new products, they lay characters over existing plain ones: opening an account and installment time deposits. An installment time deposit (tsumitate teiki yokin) is a savings product you add to regularly over a fixed term.
Mizuho Bank x hololive
- Aim: Win new account openings among younger people through a new IP genre, VTubers (performers who appear as animated avatars)
- What they did: In October 2025, the megabank Mizuho ran a campaign giving limited goods with newly drawn illustrations of talent from the VTuber agency hololive to people who opened a new account (Mizuho Bank campaign page, in Japanese)
- Our take: What a megabank teaming with VTubers shows is that corporate VTubers now sit at the same negotiating table as entertainment agencies. Passing a conservative bank’s PR review is itself a sign that the IP’s credibility has changed.
Oita Bank x Sanrio
- Aim: Turn the buzz around My Melody’s 50th anniversary and Kuromi’s 20th into new deposits
- What they did: In 2025, Oita Bank, a regional lender on the southern island of Kyushu, ran the “My Melody & Kuromi Oshi-Katsu Campaign,” giving original goods featuring Sanrio’s My Melody and Kuromi, stablemates of Hello Kitty, to people who put a set amount into a time deposit. It ran until March 31, 2026 (Oita Bank, ended campaigns, in Japanese). The bank also offers cash cards designed with both characters (Sanrio, in Japanese)
- Our take: The clever part is that it didn’t stop at a one-time prize. The characters also sit on the cash card, which customers handle almost every day. A time deposit rarely stands out, and this gives it a reason: “I want to keep this account.”
Insurance: Turning Oshi-Katsu-Specific Risk Into a Product
Of the three sectors, insurance goes deepest into how oshi-katsu really works. Card companies and banks borrow an IP; insurers started product design from what fans are actually troubled by.
Mysurance x Oshicoco “Oshi-Katsu Cancellation Insurance”
- Aim: Cover a risk that is specific to oshi-katsu and costly: the cancellation fees when a trip to see your oshi falls through
- What they did: Mysurance, a subsidiary of Sompo Japan, partnered with the oshi-katsu media outlet Oshicoco and opened a dedicated site on March 31, 2025. Its hallmark is a pitch that translates technical terms into the language of oshi-katsu fans. In prior research, one in five respondents had canceled a trip, and one in three of those had paid ¥30,000 or more, with some cases over ¥100,000, while awareness of the insurance was only about 10% (PR TIMES, in Japanese)
- Result: It won the 2025 Good Design Award, the 12th Micro Short-Term Insurance Grand Prize, and the grand prize in the oshi-katsu support category of the 2nd Oshi-Katsu Goods Awards. Nikkei, Japan’s leading business newspaper, reported on it under the headline “Oshi-katsu: 20% cry over canceled trips; insurance awareness is 10%” (in Japanese)
- Our take: What won praise was not new coverage but the work of translation. Explain insurance in terms like “non-covered items” and “policy terms” and it won’t reach even people who have lost money on ensei, trips to see your oshi. Describing the product in the language of the fan’s actual trouble was the answer to the wall of 10% awareness.
JCB x Mysurance, and Skymark x Daiichi Smart
Sales channels expanded at the same time. Mysurance’s oshi-katsu cancellation insurance went on sale on March 31, 2025, and from June 30, 2026, it can be applied for within “JCB Insurance” in “MyJCB,” the service for JCB cardholders. There are two versions, domestic and overseas trips; the domestic version costs a ¥900 premium for ¥30,000 of trip cost. It covers cancellation fees due to canceled or postponed shows, transport delays or suspensions, and sudden hospital visits or admissions, but a cancellation only by the “oshi” personally is not covered (Mysurance press release, in Japanese). On the airline side, Skymark Airlines and Daiichi Smart Micro Short-Term Insurance offer the “Skymark Oshi-Katsu Support Insurance” at ¥500 per leg (Daiichi Smart Micro Short-Term Insurance, in Japanese). The micro short-term insurance market itself is reported to have grown about 33% in the four years through the fiscal year ended March 2024.
Our take: Insurers alone had no channel to reach oshi-katsu customers, and riding JCB’s membership base solves that. But the exclusion for an oshi’s own absence runs against a fan’s instinct. What fans fear most is their oshi not appearing, and that is exactly what isn’t covered. Whether the product can say so up front will decide the trust it earns.
The Three Sectors Side by Side
| Sector | Existing asset used | What it wants from oshi-katsu | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card companies | Payment infrastructure, merchant network | Lower acquisition cost, lower churn | Overspending, credit management |
| Banks | Accounts, deposits, app | New accounts, app activity, contact with younger people | Managing prize caps, fair announcements |
| Insurance (micro short-term) | Underwriting and claims systems | A new customer base, sales channels | Misunderstanding of exclusions |
Card companies
- Payment network and merchants
- Lower acquisition cost
Banks
- Accounts, deposits and app
- Contact with younger people
Insurance
- Underwriting and claims
- A risk fans actually have
Each sector converts feeling for an oshi into a reason to choose.
What they share is that they convert feeling for an oshi into a reason to choose an existing product. A company that gets people to choose on emotion takes on a duty to explain that lives up to that emotion.
Patterns That Work and Patterns to Watch
| Angle | What’s working | What tends to trip up |
|---|---|---|
| Translating the product | Replace industry jargon with fans’ words | Calling it oshi-katsu while keeping the language of the policy terms |
| Channel | Ride an existing large membership base | Sell only on your own site |
| Management metrics | Connect directly to internal metrics such as new accounts and deposits | Get buzz but miss internal metrics |
| Explaining conditions | State exclusions, caps and deadlines up front | Put perks in front and conditions in small print |
| Consumer protection | Design monitoring of actual use | Follow the heat and chase only the amount spent |
The last row is an industry-wide issue. Use of oshi-katsu credit cards and card loans is sometimes reported as “oshi-katsu bankruptcy,” and observers point to the lowering of the age of adulthood, which lets people sign contracts on their own from 18, together with a lack of financial literacy education. There has been no announcement, however, that any specific oshi-katsu credit card product has received administrative guidance or a penalty. It is a structural issue for the whole industry, not one company’s scandal.
We sort out card types, how to choose and points of caution in our glossary entry on oshi-katsu credit cards and points.
For Company Planners: Seven Things to Decide Before Entering
- Explain with spend per customer, not market size: First measure how oshi-katsu customers differ in frequency and retention among your existing customers
- Write out the acquisition-cost calculation: Divide the investment by the target number of members to get a per-person figure, and compare it with your existing advertising cost
- Decide whether you are borrowing an IP or building an experience: A license for the card face and a co-creation that ties in live shows and goods differ in contract and in organization
- Shorten the time from application to first use: If the procedure isn’t finished at the moment emotion is high, people drop off
- Put exclusions, caps and deadlines on the first page: The more a condition runs against instinct, the more putting it later breeds distrust
- Consider riding an existing membership base: The way micro short-term insurance rode a card company’s channel can be applied elsewhere
- Have a way to watch how younger customers actually use it: Even when specialized for oshi-katsu, the approach to credit and consumer protection is no different from ordinary financial products
- 01Measure spendPer customer, not market
- 02Write the costInvestment over members
- 03Borrow or buildLicense or co-creation
- 04Cut the waitApplication to first use
- 05Lead with limitsExclusions, caps, deadlines
- 06Ride a baseExisting membership
- 07Watch usageYounger customers
The safest plans put fan protection into the first draft.
Preparation time ranges from a little under six months for the Mysurance x Oshicoco dedicated site to a five-year plan for Credit Saison’s new organization. The time frame differs greatly depending on whether you launch a product or set up a business.
Notes From The Oshi Lab: The Responsibility of Those Who Got People to Choose on Emotion
The reason financial institutions came to oshi-katsu is simple. As long as products can be compared on interest and reward rates, customers move each year to whatever has better terms. Add “because my oshi is on it” and the yardstick itself changes. Credit Saison’s 3.9 times measures that effect.
But the power that stops comparison is also the power that dulls judgment. A card with your oshi’s artwork should be chosen if the terms are the same. If it gets chosen even with worse terms, that is not product strength but a loan of emotion. What we are watching is where the companies entering this field draw that line.
In that sense, insurance makes the most sense today. If a trip is canceled, tens of thousands of yen vanish. That trouble is real, and the product answers it. It isn’t exploiting emotion; it takes on the risk that arises because of emotion. The homework of explaining exclusions remains, but the starting point is sound. As more companies enter, the question will not be how novel the product is but how far forward they put the information that lets fans stay calm. It comes down to whether a design can be built from the start of the plan so that people who chose because of their oshi won’t regret it later.
Related articles: What Are Oshi-Katsu Credit Cards and Points? / What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / The Oshi-Katsu Market Size, 2026 Edition / How to Keep an Oshi-Katsu Household Ledger
FAQ
Why are banks and card companies entering oshi-katsu?
Because it has become hard to stand out on reward rates or interest rates. Credit Saison released internal data showing that oshi-katsu customers use its cards 3.9 times as often, and spend 3.9 times as much per year, as other customers. It cites that data as the basis for its investment.
What is oshi-katsu cancellation insurance?
It is micro short-term insurance that covers the cancellation fees when you call off a trip because a show is canceled, transport is suspended, or you are suddenly hospitalized. Mysurance, a subsidiary of Sompo Japan, is among the companies that sell it.
Does oshi-katsu cancellation insurance pay out if your oshi skips the show?
Not under Mysurance's product: it excludes cases where only the oshi is absent. Exclusions differ by product, so check the policy terms and the scope of coverage before applying.
Is the screening different for an oshi-katsu credit card?
No. Cards specialized for oshi-katsu fall under the same regulations as ordinary credit cards, and the approach to credit screening is the same. Check the application conditions with each card company.
What should financial institutions be careful about in oshi-katsu programs?
Watching how younger customers actually use the products, and explaining exclusions and campaign conditions clearly. The more a design appeals to emotion, the heavier the duty to explain.
