Now this is interesting. The PASMO operating company applied for a Mobile PASMO trademark on September 13, the Apple Event date in Japan. Coincidence?
What makes this especially interesting is that IT Journalist Junya Suzuki talked with PASMO officials this summer and they told him that PASMO was not planning to build any mobile service.
Were they lying or just buying time? I still think there was something major going on with the Apple and JR East Apple Pay Suica downtime leading up to the Apple event and it makes perfect sense for PASMO to work out a mobile hosting agreement with JR East if PASMO cannot build their own. They are kissing cousins with the same operating area and already have commuter pass sharing agreements in place.
As a rule Japanese companies like to launch new services in March/April or September/October time frames. It would be great if Mobile PASMO could launch in the spring. And as twitter user Ri-kun says in his tweet, Mobile PASMO won’t mean a thing unless it is on Apple Pay.
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