AquaBit Spirals CEO Tomo Hagiwara took up my challenge earlier this year to raise the Japanese Softcream Cashless Index (SCI) to ‘over 5’ in time for the Tokyo Olympics. I figure if mundane softcream stalls are cashless, Japan is truly cashless. Today his company is teaming up with industry heavyweights JR East, Sony and DNP to deliver on that promise and bring inexpensive MaaS (Mobility as a Service) NFC tag payments (via AquaBits SmartPlate) to the masses, and the masses of merchants who don’t want to shell out for NFC reader checkout hardware. It’s the first real NFC challenge to inexpensive, infrastructure light QR Code payment schemes that leverage the established base of mobile networks and smartphones. Small businesses only need to sign up for an online payment service and put a NFC tag sticker on the checkout counter.
Since all NFC flavors (NFC A-B-F) are required for smartphone NFC certification, Read/Write FeliCa tags work on any smartphone with NFC-F even if FeliCa transactions keys for card emulation (Suica, iD, QUICPay, etc.) are not installed. Translation: inbound Android devices can use NFC tag FeliCa payments even if they can’t use Suica.
The one remaining question on the Apple side of the equation is what NFC tag integration Apple Pay has in store. Jennifer Bailey announced NFC tag Apple Pay testing back in May without a delivery date, and no details since. Ideally an NFC tag integrated Apple Pay would use Sign in with Apple to streamline or eliminate 3rd party payments service account signup within an app, and without an app via background NFC tag reading. The more ‘it just works’ integration, the better. Nobody wants to signup for a PayPay-like service on the spot just to buy hotdogs and beer at a stadium game, or softcream.
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