Category: Apple Pay

Move Suica and other transit or e-Money cards to new iPhone (updated for iOS 17)

Apple Pay transit cards (Suica, PASMO, and ICOCA) and e-Money cards (WAON and nanaco) are different from Apple Pay payment cards in that a transit or e-Money card prepaid stored value, the card balance, is stored locally on the card itself and can only exist on a single device. Apple Pay credit/debit cards coexist simultaneously on multiple devices, not Suica, PASMO, ICOCA and other transit cards like Octopus, Clipper, SmarTrip, TAP, or e-Money cards like nanaco and WAON. There are 2 ways to transfer cards: automatic transfer with iOS 17 Setup Assistant and manual transfer in Wallet app.

Automatic card transfer with iOS 17 Quick Start Setup Assistant
Quick Start device to device data transfer is the best way to setup a new iPhone. iOS 17 Set Assistant automatically transfers all payment, transit, e-Money cards, and other Wallet items from the old iPhone to the new iPhone. It is very easy to do and highly recommended.

The Apple support page Add a Suica, PASMO, or ICOCA card to Apple Wallet is updated for iOS 17 and covers moving cards in the Transfer your transit Suica, PASMO, or ICOCA card between devices section. Place the previous iPhone near the new iPhone. iOS 17 Setup Assistant has a new Wallet section that lets you select Wallet cards to transfer in the ‘Make This Your New iPhone’ splash screen. Either select the Wallet items you want to transfer or leave it all up to Set Assistant. Setup Assistant automatically transfers Wallet items to the new iPhone. As always, make sure all devices have a good internet connection.

Manual card transfer in Wallet app
Users can manually transfer cards from the previous iPhone Wallet app to the new iPhone simply by adding it from Previous Cards. The old pre-iOS 17 ‘Suica 2-step’ of manually removing Suica from the old device before transfer is irrelevant and unnecessary.

Tap Previous Cards
Select cards then tap Continue
Tap Next to complete the transfer

Once transfer is complete, the previous card will remain visible in the Wallet app showing ‘This card cannot be used’. The card can be safely removed, you can also safely wipe the device.

  • Transfer Suica from previous Apple Watch to new Apple Watch
    Apple Watch Suica users upgrading to a new Apple Watch is easy with watchOS 10. From the Set up your Apple Watch • Set up as new or restore from a backup section: If you’ve set up another Apple Watch with your current iPhone, a screen appears that says Make This Your New Apple Watch. Tap Apps & Data and Settings to see how Express Setup will configure your new watch. Then tap Continue. If you want to choose how your new watch is set up, tap Customize Settings. Then choose a backup from another previous Apple Watch to restore.
  • You can also add cards manually in Wallet as outlined in the previous iPhone section via Previous Cards.

What about Suica App and other card apps?

If your Suica, PASMO, ICOCA or e-Money card is registered in the coressponding app, your account and password information will migrate to the new device like any regular iOS app when using device to device data transfer. The apps will automatically pick up the card information from Wallet but you will need to login to access the card app account. If you deleted the app before device to device data transfer, you will need to manually enter account and password information to login when re-adding the app. See the Suica App and PASMO App guide for account setup details.

e-Money card apps ask for the Japanese mobile number used for registering the card in the app and send a verification code via SMS.

Troubleshooting

Wiped old iPhone before setting up new iPhone
If you wiped the old iPhone before setting up a new one and cannot find your previous Suica Wallet card see: Recover Suica • PASMO and e-Money cards from a lost or wiped iPhone. Other topics can be found on the Apple Pay Suica • PASMO Guide.

Robust network connection is extremely important!
Make sure all devices have a good WiFi or mobile connection and confirm you are outside of the 2am~4am JST Mobile Suica • Mobile PASMO system maintenance window. Do not use free WiFi or carrier auto-connect WiFi, they are notoriously unreliable.

Suica, PASMO, ICOCA card ID number changes
The Suica or PASMO card ID number may change when transferred to a new iPhone or Apple Watch Wallet. Linked services like EX App (smartEX and Express Reservation), Touch and Go Shinkansen and JR East Ekinet Shinkansen eTickets stop working when the Suica, PASMO, ICOCA ID number changes and users must manually update information with each linked service account to re-link services with the new ID #. For Suica and PASMO getting full ID number requires a transit card issuer app such as Suica or PASMO app, ICOCA displays the full ID number in Wallet card details.

How long will the Suica card shortage last?

The first indication that something was up the FeliCa chip supply chain came on May 31 as an small announcement from Iwatekenkotsu Co., Ltd that the scheduled last leg of their Suica 2 in 1 Iwate Green Pass bus support rollout would be delayed due to new IC reader device procurement delays.

This was quickly followed by a large joint press release from JR East and PASMO on June 2 announcing that unregistered Suica and PASMO cards, the plastic ones that people can buy in Tokyo area station kiosks, would not be available starting June 8, ‘until further notice’.

On July 31 JR East • PASMO announced that registered Suica and PASMO plastic cards would not be available from August 2, expanding upon the June 8 sales suspension of unregistered Suica and PASMO plastic cards. The news turned media heads but was not a surprise to industry analysts and insiders.

The official reason for the Suica plastic card sales suspension is ‘the global chip shortage,’ but that doesn’t sound right when there are gluts out there. These things can be complex so I asked an old colleague who specializes in chip production analysis about the situation. He had this to say:

Domestic manufacturers of non-volitive memory of the type used in FeliCa chips, reduced manufacturing capacity (the NAND market segment is currently in a recession due to overproduction and excess inventory). This reduction came when there was an increase of inbound visitors to Japan buying Suica and PASMO cards. There was also increased demand for new Suica purchases due to the expansion of the Suica area to the Tohoku region, because the population is not as large as Kanto and Kansai, demand is expected to settle down soon.

However as production capacity will not return to previous levels, there is a high possibility that supply and demand will continue to be tight to some extent.

Other Japanese sources say another factor is that all transit IC manufacturing has been sub-contracted out to Taiwan. In short, buckle up folks, it’s going to be a long bumpy ride as in addition to manufacturers cutting production due to the non-volitive memory glut, Japanese IC card production (FeliCa chip, antenna, card, etc.) has been farmed out to Taiwan. As the saying goes, they’re always a great risk putting all ones eggs in one basket, especially with chip production. But no matter how many times companies learn this hard lesson, companies soon forget.

The May 27 Tohoku Suica launch and Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate card launches are certainly a short term factor in the FeliCa chip shortage as JR East is still selling both registered and unregistered Suica cards in the Tohoku region and Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate cards. Outside of the Tohoku area JR East and PASMO will continue to sell plastic commuter passes and inbound speciality cards like Welcome Suica and PASMO PASSPORT, however inventory is tight and JR East reduced the number of Welcome Suica sales outlets on August 2.

People assume that Transit IC cards from other regions like ICOCA or SUGOCA are readily available but this is not the case as operators are quietly limiting sales outlets. SUGOCA for example is not available at station kiosks but kept ‘under the counter’: buyers have to go the nearest JR Train Reservation office and ask for it. Expect this to start happening for all regular non-commuter pass Transit IC cards as well, partly to control inventory, partly to keep scalpers from cleaning out transit cards from kiosk station machines for resale.

Why not use Mobile Suica and Mobile PASMO then? Unfortunately the mobile situation for inbound visitors isn’t great: visitors with only VISA cards or Android are basically out of luck.

So unless VISA lifts their foreign card Mobile Suica blockade, and it has been in place for a year now, even Apple Pay Suica • PASMO • ICOCA users are limited to using Mastercard and Amex cards…using cash recharge. More on that situation in later post.

The easiest solution for JR East and PASMO is to encourage domestic Suica and PASMO users to go with Mobile Suica and Mobile PASMO instead of plastic cards. They are already doing that but expect more Mobile Suica and Mobile PASMO promotion campaigns and reward point enticements. If anything, the plastic Suica • PASMO card shortage is the best Mobile Suica • PASMO promotion ever.

A warning sign for Japanese open loop transit operators: when the EMV payment network goes down, FeliCa networks keep working

Mobile Suica has had a rough 2 weeks. On June 24 a construction error during server center power supply expansion work left JR East Mobile Suica and Eki-Net online reservation services offline for 12 hours (0:00~12:00). It was an embarrassing mishap but the actual damage was small, limited to refunding Eki-Net ticket holders who couldn’t change ticket reservations. Mobile Suica was offline so no refunding was necessary because nobody could use the Mobile Suica credit card recharge service. No need to refund what people can’t buy.

A shorter but much more problematic outage happened on June 27. Media mistakenly reported that Mobile Suica was down but this was not the case as Mobile Suica on Android was working just fine. It was an Apple Pay problem: Apple Pay servers went down from heavy demand on Apple Pay ICOCA launch day, taking down not only Apple Pay Suica recharge but also PASMO, ICOCA, nanaco, WAON, Octopus, China T-Union, adding credit cards and other Wallet services worldwide. As the outage took place during the Japanese business day, JR East had to refund iOS Suica App users who attempted to buy or use Suica Green Car tickets during the Apple Pay outage.

Just as things were settling down, another even shorter 40 minute period of trouble occurred on July 8 at 12:00~12:40 JST. Again the media reported that Mobile Suica was down, again they were mistaken, and again it wasn’t an JR East or Mobile Suica problem, it was a much wider, and unreported, EMV credit card payment network outage. EMV transactions on readers everywhere were not responding, and they were not working for Apple Pay or Google Pay. However FeliCa payment network cards were working.

And finally there was, yet another, Apple Pay and Wallet outage on July 14 from 17:45 to 18:30 JST, with another round of Japanese media bashing poor old Mobile Suica without checking for the wider Apple Pay outage.

Mobile Suica caught the media blame because they were the only company duly reporting the problems on Mobile Suica support SNS services. JR East never lays an outage blame on Apple Pay, or any other service partner because they know Mobile Suica users don’t care, they only want to know when things are not working and when they will be fixed. This is the way it should be done because they are giving their users fast, accurate, service information…even if that means they have to take the media and SNS blame that comes with it.

But despite all the Mobile Suica outages including the EMV payment network one, the Suica card itself always remained working, both digital or plastic versions. As long as there is money on the card it works for transit and payments, and cash recharge is available 24/7. This is an under appreciated but very important aspect of the Transit IC system: there is always a non-network fail safe cash backup. Japanese never put all their household finances in one basket, cash is always the one thing that works after an earthquake, typhoon, natural or manmade infrastructure damaging disaster strikes.

In the EMV credit card payment network outage there was, without doubt, unreported trouble with open loop system test deployments on Nankai, Fukuoka Metro and other QUADRAC • stera transit operated systems, which all open loop systems in Japan use: it’s the only open loop player in town.

Unlike Mobile Suica however, when the credit card payment processing network goes down, open loop doesn’t have a fail safe cash backup. And while that’s not a problem now with small installation test sites and a tiny user base, it will be when open loop goes big time. The transit companies deploying open loop have an obligation to take care of their customers, but will they take JR East-like responsibility when QUADRAC goes down, or stera goes down, or NTT Data CAFIS, payment processing centers, or mobile carrier networks? Because believe me they will. All highly connected, interdependent networks do. That’s why we always need alternative methods and networks. Too bad that VISA is working to remove the non-EMV transit gate competition in Japan.

Apple Pay ICOCA launches for JR West

JR West launched Apple Pay ICOCA today, June 27, three months after launching Mobile ICOCA for Android Osaifu Keitai devices, two months after announcing Apple Pay support, one week later than my estimate.

Apple Pay ICOCA works on iPhone 8 and later with iOS 16 or Apple Watch 3 and later running watchOS 8.7.1, similar but slightly different support specs than Suica and PASMO as detailed in Apple’s updated support page. Unlike the Android version, Apple Pay has a few, for now, exclusives:

  • Directly add new ICOCA cards to Wallet without ICOCA App
  • Directly transfer of plastic ICOCA and SMART ICOCA cards to Wallet
  • Directly add money with Apple Pay in Wallet without ICOCA App

Direct Wallet add is an important difference from Mobile ICOCA on Android as any user can add and use the card without the WESTER ID requirement. Apple Pay ICOCA is also the first ICOCA for wearables thanks to Apple Watch. All regular JR West issue plastic ICOCA cards: unregistered, registered, commuter passes are supported in Wallet.

Launch day demand was beyond expectations and Apple Pay servers were down for 2 hours in the evening hours, bringing down all Apple Wallet add card and recharge services in Japan, a repeat of the Apple Pay Suica 2016 launch meltdown. As always Apple underestimated demand from a user base with 19 years of mobile payments experience.

As previously discussed, the addition of Apple Pay ICOCA means that along with Apple Pay Suica and Apple Pay PASMO, over 90% of the transit IC card market is now on mobile. The advantage for Apple Pay ICOCA users is that they can now use JR West commuter passes and also get the benefit of WESTER POINT rewards with recharge and using Apple Pay ICOCA on JR West lines. Another nice Apple Pay ICOCA touch is that card details display the entire card number which is very helpful to copy/paste the ICOCA number with linked services such as Shinkansen eTicket EX and Eki-Net.

ICOCA App for iOS also launched on June 27. The functionality is limited compared to Suica App. A WESTER ID is required and can be registered in the app. Registered WESTER users can add new commuter passes, earn and use WESTER POINT for recharge, app recharge is limited to J-West issue credit cards. Apple Pay ICOCA commuter passes are limited to JR West issue and have to be added to Wallet separately: unlike Suica, users cannot purchase a ICOCA commute pass for a regular ICOCA card already in Wallet.

Unfortunately foreign issue VISA card use with Apple Pay ICOCA is blocked by VISA as it has been for Apple Pay Suica • PASMO In-App use since August 2022 with no explanation or resolution in sight., a pain point for international travelers without Mastercard or AMEX card options. As always cash recharge is always available when credit card recharge doesn’t work.

Apple Pay ICOCA card details let users copy the entire card number for easy linking to other services
Apple Pay ICOCA intro video from JR West
JR East embracing Apple Pay and native Wallet functions allowed them to grow Mobile Suica to undreamed of user growth, expect a similar uptake growth curve with Apple Pay ICOCA

Secrets of iOS 17 Apple Wallet: laying a foundation for open NFC

Now that WWDC23 has come and gone, it’s time to take stock of what’s changed, and what’s not, for all things iOS 17 Apple Pay and Wallet. On the surface nothing much appears to have changed. Despite some lame last minute Wallet predictions from Mark Gurman, nothing much has changed in the iOS 17 Wallet UI, only a few modest tweaks for the iOS 17 life cycle. But just like iOS 15 Wallet, the fun stuff that tells us what’s happening and how it will play out over the digital wallet landscape in the years to come is hiding below the surface.

One of the things nobody has noticed or pointed out is the interesting connection with the iOS 17 compatible device list and the embedded secure element (eSE). Let’s take a look.

iOS 17 clears out the last of what I call embedded secure element v1 iPhone models, iPhone 8 and iPhone X, that do not support Power Reserve. The importance of Power Reserve eSE v2 cannot be overstated: eSE v2 handles Apple Pay transaction process completely independent of iOS. This is why iOS can power down into power reserve mode and let eSE v2 continue to handle Express Mode transactions. iOS 17 code no longer has to babysit the whole Apple Pay and Secure Element transaction process that previous iOS versions had to do for eSE v1 iPhones.

The Power Reserve ready eSE v2 iPhone list

With these legacy devices cleared out, we are left with eSE v2 iPhone models. What can iOS 17 do without all that legacy eSE v1 support cruft? A lot evidently, the old 16 Wallet card limit is gone, blown to bits. The sky is the limit, actually the eSE memory is the limit and that’s a lot because iOS 17 beta 1 users are adding way more than 16 Wallet cards, even more than 40. Card and payments ‘otaku‘ in Japan are rejoicing of course but why is Apple doing this? What’s the point?

Wallet needs secure element space obviously because Apple’s long term strategy has lined up big end user services encompassing payment cards, transit cards, digital keys for home, office and hotels, driver’s licenses and eventually all kinds of IDs including passports. Apple has also lined up merchant side services: Tap to Pay on iPhone, and now Tap to Present ID on iPhone. More on those in a bit. All of these services need eSE space. But there’s more: when iOS 17 beta 1 eSE memory becomes full and the user tries to add a new card, Wallet presents a new screen that displays a list of installed cards, how much memory they consume and the option to swipe delete cards:

From Twitter user @RayistaW: “iOS17 eliminates the fixed maximum number of cards. As long as the eSE has enough space, you can add unlimited cards. Moreover, after it is filled up, it will prompt the space required when adding a card and the space occupied by each card. Cards that fail to be added due to lack of space will be displayed when they are added next time.”
Twitter user sk32751ibj posted screenshots of the iOS 17.0 error screen when attempting to add a Wallets card when the iPhone Secure Element is full. 39 Wallet cards in this case. It’s interesting that multiple FeliCa cards are grouped as one big virtual card, likely the same if the user has multiple VISA cards, etc.

If people are looking for evidence that Apple is preparing iOS for EU regulatory purgatory, this is it. Letting customers deal with an overcrowded eSE instead of iOS taking care of everything is…very un-Apple like. Let’s face it, who the heck knows or cares what a Secure Element is?

Apple has cleared the eSE deck for mandated ‘open NFC’ (which really means open eSE) regulation. Apple has an iOS that no longer has to manage and police eSE transactions, if so forced iOS 17 can step aside. Side loaded apps and similar can load whatever eSE applets they want and do their own thing. If they stomp on somebody else’s eSE applets and create mayhem at the payment terminal, well that’s the price of government regulations that remove Apple as eSE gatekeeper. Let users deal with the mess of managing which cards can be safely loaded into the eSE. Dear EU iPhone user…welcome to the Android NFC experience.

As for business as usual, iOS 17 Wallet has a few nice tweaks, the most important of which is multi-device provisioning. All the other ‘new’ features simply build off of what’s already there and are currently limited to the USA only Apple Card and Apple Cash. Multi-device provisioning is for everybody and will make life much easier. One of the easiest ways to see it in action is that Wallet Previous Cards will display any cards that are on one device but not the other. In the above example I have transit cards (Suica, PASMO) and e-Money card (WAON) on Apple Watch but not on iPhone. This is because stored value cards that keep the value on the card itself can only exist on a single device.

This has been caused a lot of confusion over the years for Apple Pay Suica users who assume that all cards work like a credit card. It also caused panic when users upgraded to a new iPhone. Pre-iOS 17 Setup Assistant would only transfer credit cards to the new iPhone but not Suica and similar cards. Thanks to iOS 17 multi-device provisioning, iOS 17 Setup Assistant seamlessly moves everything, credit cards, transit cards, keys, ID, *everything* so that you don’t have to.

Features like multi-device provisioning that make Apple Pay and Wallet so easy to use, are very hard to do. It is the greater sum of the parts that will keep customers, and developers too, choosing to stay with Apple as gatekeeper no matter how many rules the EU masters dictate.

Tap to Pay and Tap to Present ID are merchant targeted business services that showcase Apple’s integrated Wallet ecosystem built on the embedded secure element and secure enclave

The greater sum of parts will keep growing. Tap to Present ID showcases how Apple continually builds and integrates new services into a compelling whole. A slow burn focus thing. First we got ID in Wallet that was almost useless: Present your license or ID at a TSA checkpoint (do they really exist?). The first real use case arrived with iOS 16 ‘Share your license or ID in an app’ for in-app ID verification. And now we have iOS 17 Tap to Present ID which can transform any iOS 17 eSE v2 iPhone into a cheap payment and ID verification terminal. This combo has a lot of potential, if government ID issuing agencies get their act together, and other government agencies don’t get in the way.

Take Japan’s My Number ID (Individual Number Card) for example. The digital version finally launched on Android in May, after significant delays, but there are significant problems with the whole My Number ID card system. At the same time a different branch of the Japanese government wants to mandate open app stores. When Tim Cook met up with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida at the end of Apple’s Japanese charm offensive tour this past December, Tim gently waffled on committing to support My Number ID in Wallet due to unspecified ‘privacy concerns’. As in ‘you can forgot about privacy, security and My Number ID in Wallet if your government mandates side loading apps’.

Unveiling Tap to Present ID on iPhone now, well before the service actually launches ‘later this year’, works as a defense strategy against such government attempts to recklessly remove Apple as gatekeeper of their own devices. iPhone customers won’t trust using a digital ID unless they can be assured that Apple is playing gatekeeper. No Apple gatekeeper, no digital ID for the rest of us, it’s that simple. It all comes down to privacy and trust.