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 […]
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 […]
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 […]