Japanese tech journalist Satoru Nakayama who posted his experience of riding the Shanghai subway with an Apple Pay Express Transit China card loaded on his iPhone earlier, continues his Apple Pay NFC switching global travel adventures with trips to Taipei and London. His Apple Pay Rakuten Mastercard which uses the FeliCa QUICPay network in Japan, worked perfectly with Mastercard Contactless readers overseas.
He noted that Mastercard Contactless is making rapid progress in Taiwan, encountering none of the Mastercard Apple Pay refusals he experienced earlier this year. London was also easy and he rode the London Underground without an Oyster card (MIFARE), using Apple Pay instead (EMV contactless). His picture highlights one shortcoming of using ‘Open Loop’ EMV contactless credit card payment for transit: no Express Cards.
Another problem Nakayama san encountered is that many London stores only accept contactless payment for purchases over 5 GBP or restaurants that only accept contactless payment for 2 people or more. This is a problem that Japan’s Osaifu-Keitai solved long ago: the “e-money” contactless payments system that Sony and NTT Docomo pioneered in 2004 covered both credit cards and prepaid cards. It also eliminated signatures, PIN codes and ‘no contactless payments on sales less than XX’ nonsense. Sony and NTT Docomo knew that people would not use contactless payments if they were not accepted everywhere without conditions, just like cash.
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