Some people look at Japan and see a crazy mess of cashless payment options: credit cards, iD, QUICPay, Suica, QR Code players like PayPay and Line Pay, all vying for customer wallet space. ‘It’s a shame,’ they say, ‘In our country we have it all worked out with EMV contactless bank cards that do everything.’
I’ve got news for those people, the mess they are seeing in Japan is the future, it just hasn’t come to their country yet. It’s the revolution of payments on smartphones that started with digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. but it’s sure not ending there, the number of payment options is only going to grow. Get used to it.
The one size fits all thinking of the plastic card era is dead. Some people think it still lives on in digital wallets, but it’s dead. The future belongs to nimble players who mix and match the best payment technologies for the job at hand and offer customers better services along with it.
The so called ‘FeliCa failure’ curse is actually a kind of blessing: the market payment technology fragmentation gave new players a footing to try different payment methods. Diversity isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. The diversity of Japanese cashless payment options is the result of its longer history of mobile payments.
That is what smart devices, digital wallets and payment apps do: they erode the old ways and bring fragmentation along with new opportunities. There will be cycles of expansion and consolidation but one size fits all will never come back. Call it cutting edge or call it stupid, like it or not, the cashless mess is coming your way.
You must be logged in to post a comment.