on the JASDAQ market on April 19, 2000. At the time, the online marketplace had 2,300 stores and 95 million page views per month, making it one of the most popular sites in Japan. In March 2001, the online hotel reservation service Rakuten Travel was launched. In April 2002, a new system was introduced for merchants, combining monthly fixed fees with commissions on sales. That November, the Rakuten Super Point Program, a membership loyalty program, was introduced. In September 2004, Rakuten grew its financial services businesses by acquiring consumer finance company Aozora Card Co., Ltd., later renaming it Rakuten Card Co., Ltd. The company began offering a Rakuten credit card in 2005. By November 2016, the Rakuten card was held by over 13 million people, and nearly 40% of Rakuten's revenue was from financial services, as it was operating Japan's largest Internet bank and third-largest credit company. Rakuten card holders are a part of a point-based membership program, and can use those points to make purchases on the Internet mall. In 2016, the company introduced Rakuten Pay, an app-based smartphone payment system. In October 2004, Rakuten Baseball was created, and the baseball team Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles was formed and joined Nippon Professional Baseball. In 2005, Rakuten started expanding outside Japan, mainly through acquisitions and joint ventures. In December 2005, Rakuten established the Rakuten Institute of Technology in Tokyo as its department in charge of research and development. In a joint venture in February 2008, Rakuten and President Chain Store established Rakuten's first e-commerce site outside of Japan with Rakuten Ichiba Taiwan. 2010s Around 2011, Rakuten started heavily expanding outside of Japan, with prominent moves including a stake in Canadian e-book maker Kobo Inc. and an investment in Pinterest. In 2011, Rakuten launched Indonesia's Rakuten Belanja Online. By late 2012, Rakuten had moved into online retail in Austria, Canada, Spain, Taiwan and Thailand and into the online travel markets in France—with Voyager Moins Cher.com—and China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan—with its Tokyo-based international Rakuten Travel platform. In North America, Rakuten Golf made booking tee time online possible. To increase its global competitiveness, and to better incorporate non-Japanese speakers, Rakuten decided to adopt English as the company's official language starting in 2012. By 2016, nearly 40% of the company's engineers in Japan were non-Japanese. In September 2014, Rakuten bought Ebates for $1 billion to enter online shopping membership rewards in Canada,