Tag: Rakuten Edy

Instant issue for Apple Pay Edy, nanaco, WAON?

A fun mockup of Wallet add card options for Edy, nanaco, WAON that will probably never happen. If they come it will be digital issue via apps.

Now that VISA JP finally signed with Apple Pay, what about the last holdouts: Edy, nanaco and WAON? These have been on Google Pay for some time but like all things Google Pay Japan, it is courtesy of Osaifu Keitai rather than native Google support. Apple was smart to go for Suica first, then PASMO (which has yet to appear on Google Pay) but it’s time to complete the Apple Pay Japan lineup.

Google Pay Japan has 2 basic categories for adding cards: EMV bank payment cards (AMEX, JCB, mastercard, VISA) and Japanese eMoney cards (Suica, Edy, nanaco, WAON, iD, QUICPay). In other words, Google Pay arranges cards by NFC flavor. This is because many Android devices sold outside of Japan don’t include FeliCa even though they have the hardware to do so. Google Pixel 5 for example has Mobile FeliCa installed on every single device it sells, but only activates it for Japanese models. Perhaps this will change with Pixel 6, we will see.

Apple Pay doesn’t make a distinction between NFC flavors, just one global NFC. No EMV or FeliCa bank payment cards, just payment cards, period. Apple also encourages Japanese bank card issuers to use the NFC switching and dual mode features of iOS and watchOS Wallet for seamless use on any payment reader in Japan or abroad. The same thing applies to Wallet transit cards. Wallet can have multiple Express Transit cards and juggle between FeliCa (Suica, Octopus, PASMO) MIFARE (SmarTrip, Clipper, TAP) and PBOC (China T-Union cards).

So what is the Wallet category for non-transit stored value prepaid payment cards? I have no idea but for this exercise I’ll use eMoney (電子マネー). Apple Pay has everything in place to flip the switch since 2016, what’s the holdup? There’s a big problem using the Suica add card Wallet process for eMoney cards. This problem is on full display with Google Pay WAON: the user has to create an WAON account in Google Pay to add it. Worse, if the user deletes the WAON card they loose the Google Pay created WAON ID and card balance.

  • Add WAON
  • Create id and password
  • Register details for big data analysis and tracking

I don’t think Apple wants this ‘create an account’ nightmare scenario in Apple Pay, that’s what apps are for. Fortunately we have a growing collection of ‘instant issue’ apps for adding cards to Wallet and digital issue only is quickly becoming standard for Apple Pay Japan debit/prepaid cards: kyash, Minna no Ginko, Toyota Wallet, etc. The digital issue app model is perfect for Edy, nanaco and WAON who want to be collecting accounts instead of selling plastic prepaid cards. They already have iOS apps. Leave the account creation and management drudgery in the app so users curse the app instead of Apple Pay. Once done the user taps ‘Add to Wallet’ and presto, instant WAON all ready to go with direct Wallet recharge. Other bonuses: (1) instant issue apps eliminate ‘I wanna transfer my plastic card to Wallet’ overhead, (2) if anything goes wrong and the balance is lost, it’s the fault of the app, not Apple Pay. Keeping things simple and streamlined is key for a good Apple Pay user experience, one more Wallet reboot challenge for iOS 15.

Japan’s new economic zone: Rakuten

The April 30 addition of iPhone 12 lineup to Rakuten Mobile marked the transformation of Rakuten Mobile into a first tier carrier on the same level of Docomo, KDDI au and SoftBank. Now that SoftBank is taking Rakuten to court over allegedly stolen SoftBank corporate secrets, I think we know who is feeling the pressure. It is the end of an era. SoftBank was the first carrier to launch iPhone in Japan back in 2007 when NTT Docomo refused and KDDI au could not (the Verizon iPhone problem). They cleverly used iPhone to leverage their position from an industry also-ran into a serious first tier carrier grabbing marketshare for the other majors.

Rakuten Mobile is now playing the hungry upstart with fresh ideas and aggressive plans: pay for what you actually use instead of paying for a monthly allotment just like the good old land line days…how original. Nevertheless SoftBank feels threatened not only by Rakuten Mobile but the total weight of the Rakuten Empire: Rakuten Pay which encompasses Rakuten Edy and Rakuten Suica, and most of all, Rakuten Point.

SoftBank has similar parts, PayPay and TPoint/TMoney, but they are not well integrated across the SoftBank empire and more importantly, they don’t have the synergy of Rakuten. That’s why people in their 20~40’s are sometimes referred to as living in the Rakuten economic zone, leveraging Rakuten Point as currency ‘plus’ to make their real money go much farther for all of their needs.

But there’s one more thing. Now that Rakuten Mobile has the full iPhone lineup, it’s only a matter of time before Rakuten Edy and Rakuten Suica join Apple Pay. That is SoftBank’s true nightmare.