The first year after leaving a steady income job for freelance or part-time work is always a challenge because you have to pay local taxes and national health insurance for […]
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. […]
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 Payments
Apple Pay branding and what it means
As usual, the ever growing number of inbound visitors to Japan are scratching heads at store checkout terminals asking to ‘pay with Apple Pay’ which doesn’t mean anything in the […]
Mobile Payments - Mobile Transit
NFC Release 15, marketing vs reality
There’s been a lot of online discussion of the NFC Forum NFC Release 15 announcement. The public can’t access new specification details until this fall but the headline feature of […]
Mobile Payments - Mobile Transit
Apple Pay Express Transit fear mongers alive and well peddling outdated information (updated)
Ghost stories are a summertime tradition in Japan, especially ‘ghost pictures’. Everybody knows they’re fake but they still hold a lurid fascinating appeal to the human imagination. When done right, […]