iOS 13: Set up a Suica card in Apple Pay

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Up until iOS 12 adding a Suica card to Apple Pay Wallet has been centered around transferring a plastic Suica card. The Apple setup page assumed you already have a plastic Suica, there was no mention of adding a virtual Suica card or how to do it. Not any more.

In iOS 13 the Suica setup is no longer about transferring a plastic card, it’s all about creating a virtual Suica card in Wallet. This eliminates a lot of setup hurdles for inbound travelers, and Japanese users too, who want to use Apple Pay Suica:

• No more need to buy a plastic Suica
• No more fuss adding the last 4 digits of the Suica ID number
• No more entering a birth date
• No more reading Suica card data into Wallet
• No more dead useless plastic Suica card

The new iOS 13 Set up a Suica card in Apple Pay instructions are this:

1. Set Region to Japan
2. Open Wallet and tap the plus sign
3. Tap Continue.
4. Tap Suica Card.
5. Select an amount to put on your transit card.
6. Follow the steps to create a new transit card on your iPhone.
7. Return Region to desired preference.

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The iOS 13 Suica setup is exactly like the current Beijing/Shanghai transit card setup with one big difference: you use your Apple Pay credit/debit cards to add money to Suica, it’s open ended. China transit virtual cards require an Apple Pay China UnionPay credit/debit card, it’s not inbound friendly.

The Suica setup is inbound friendly, as Apple Pay Octopus will be when it launches with iOS 13. JR East has streamlined and beefed up the Mobile Suica system to accommodate the addition of what will doubtlessly be many virtual Suica cards. It appears that all new Suica cards created in iOS 13 Wallet are the ‘My Suica’ variety, this means they are registered in the Mobile Suica system and you can create more than one.

Creating virtual ‘My Suica’ used to require a Mobile Suica account and Suica App, but if this is no longer the case it suggests that all Apple Pay users adding virtual Suica in iOS 13 Wallet are now registered Mobile Suica users….at least from the backend system operations point of view. I suspect we’ll be getting details from JR East, and a new version of Suica App at some point.

There are still some gray areas, such as the status, or necessity of SuicaENG. I hope it sticks around because even though it’s a throwaway one time use app, it adds a virtual Suica without the ‘set Region to Japan’ setup requirement of Wallet. There’s also the problem of Apple Pay Suica card refunds which require a Japanese bank account to receive. I suspect JR East will stick to its guns and tell users to spend the remaining Suica balance down close to zero and remove it from Wallet.