Sometimes there are advantages in being late to a party. JR East Suica and JR West ICOCA are following different regional service expansion strategies with JR West leveraging their late […]
Mobile Payments
Kyodo ‘exclusive’ report claims some old FeliCa chips are vulnerable
The Kyodo News agency published a report on August 28 claiming that some types of FeliCa chips shipped before 2017 are vulnerable and may be tampered with for certain operations. […]
Help Desk
Maintenance Notice
Many things changed during COVID: the Japan scene, the transit scene, the payments scene. Reader interest in what I was writing about pretty much evaporated in 2023, never to return. […]
Mobile Payments
Can Japan stop the VISA squeeze?
It’s been a long time coming but VISA Japan has finally come under scrutiny from the Japan Fair Trade Commission for breaking Japan’s anti-monopoly act, telling VISA to reform their […]
Mobile Transit
Apple Pay Tmoney at last
Apple Pay Tmoney finally dropped into Wallet today after a very long gestation. Widespread use is limited because only Hyundai Card users can add money in Wallet. There are more […]
Japanese Buddhism
Passing The Baton
IntroIn the episodic 2015 Japanese film ‘Midnight Diner’, one of the story threads involves somebody leaving the cremated remains behind in the diner. The regular customers and the diner owner […]