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Comment by enz | Hacker News Reader

> I feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'premium' feeling around it in Japan, with the cars/staff/pricing being higher-class than the run-of-the-mill taxis you can hail.

Even for a limo-class car, it's hard to beat the Toyota "JPN Taxi" model. Thoses high roof taxis are so fine!

Besides, being able to pay with a Suica card is very convenient.

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Love paying with a suica for taxi and basically anything, I've stopped taking any taxi that does not accept it and I'm considering changing my laundry place just because of this.

American here. What makes "suica" a superior contactless payment method?

EDIT: Thanks for the replies! Seems it's a more full featured version of Chicago's Ventra card.

Lots of places in Japan don't take Visa/Mastercard, so it's either Suica/Pasmo or cash. There's tons of vending machines, for instance, but they don't take credit cards, but a lot of them do take Suica. Suica is basically a debit card; you put money on it (there's terminals at all the subway stations) and then spend it on the subway/train fares and also at other places that accept it, like vending machines, taxis, and various establishments.

The only thing I didn't like about Suica/Pasmo when I was in Japan was that, unlike a credit card, there doesn't seem to be a way to get a statement so you can see where you spent all your money. But I was only there for 2 weeks as a tourist, so maybe it's possible to get access to that and I just didn't find it.

> The only thing I didn't like about Suica/Pasmo when I was in Japan was that, unlike a credit card, there doesn't seem to be a way to get a statement so you can see where you spent all your money

I use Suikakeibo [0] for that. The latest 20-ish transactions seem to be stored on the card, so by scanning it using my phone every day I could keep a history of everything I used it for. You can even put in notes, since non-transit transaction don't list what you bought with it - just the amount.

It makes for a nice reminder of my past trips. =)

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.mediavrog....

Wow, thanks! I'll be sure to use this next time I go there!

> > The only thing I didn't like about Suica/Pasmo when I was in Japan was that, unlike a credit card, there doesn't seem to be a way to get a statement so you can see where you spent all your money

> I use Suikakeibo [0] for that. The latest 20-ish transactions seem to be stored on the card, so by scanning it using my phone every day I could keep a history of everything I used it for. You can even put in notes, since non-transit transaction don't list what you bought with it - just the amount.

> It makes for a nice reminder of my past trips. =)

> [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.mediavrog.....

Suica cards are readable on your phone via something like farebot (on Android). I'm able to see all my suica transactions on my phone via nfc.

Pro tip I didn't learn until embarrasingly late, they can recharge it in many (all?) places that they accept it, especially in convinis. Just say "charji" and give them money + tap it.

No Fees: Suica does not charge users merchant fees. Contrast that with a credit card, which charge fees as a % of transactions. Some credit cards with contactless functionality (eg. PayWave) charge a higher % if you use the contactless method rather than inserting or swiping. If you like money, well, you get more of it by using Suica. You do have to pay a 500 JPY deposit (refundable) when you first obtain the card. You can get this back at any JR station whenever you want. Also if you're using a foreign card, you might be charged foreign exchange fees and also get a bad exchange rate (ie. the rate is almost always some % worse in favor of the bank). If you can find a more efficient way of getting JPY onto a Suica, then you can save money.

Privacy: If you care about privacy, Suica is relatively anonymous, unless you (optionally) register it. It's probably possible to link a card to someone retrospectively with CCTV, but your transaction history is not being broadcast in real-time to your bank.

Acceptance: It's also increasingly widely accepted: public transport (the Tokyo metro system is amazing and gets you just about anywhere efficiently); taxis; the pervasive convenience stores + some supermarkets; more and more retail stores. Edit: as another poster pointed out, a huge % of transactions in Japan are made in cash and it's quite common for stores to not accept credit cards, yet some of these do accept Suica.

Discounts: You might get discounts on train fares if you use Suica, too.

No battery required: The SUICA works 24/7, 365, with no need to charge it. Unless I'm mistaken, smartphones require at least reserve battery for NFC payments to work.

Suica was awesome in tokyo, but I wasn't able to use it in Osaka unfortunately. Other than that, I love it. I had the card originally but I switched to just using my phone.

How long ago was this? In the past couple of years, I believe the backend systems have been integrated so you can use Tokyo-specific cards in Osaka and vice versa

This March. I wasn't able to use Suica for the Osaka busses.

Were you using some minor bus company? To a first approximation, all Japanese IC cards are compatible these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica#Interoperation

Actually on second thought, this happened in Fukuoka, not Osaka. In Osaka I was able to take the metro with Suica.

I ended up carrying around cash and change anyway since a lot of places in Tokyo were still cash only.

I’ve used suica from Hokkaido to Kyuushuu. Some local bus lines don’t accept it, including the one in my city, but they seem to be gradually adding suica compatibility everywhere. It’ll probably be universal in a few more years (tech adoption is incredibly slow in Japan)

Suica is produced by JR East. In Osaka, what about the equivalent card produced by JR West?

It works everywhere instantly (just tap) and you can reload it with cash in almost any train station or convenience store. I doubt there is part of Tokyo that is more than 5 minutes from a place to load your suica/pasmo card.

As comented on other thread:

Pro tip I didn't learn until embarrasingly late, they can recharge it in many (all?) places that they accept it, especially in convinis. Just say "charji" and give them money + tap it.

It’s also the fastest of any contactless card I’ve ever used. Faster than Clipper, Taipei Metro card, and faster than apple pay. Even the iPhone integration is fast.

https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/11497078/ This (Japanese) article is an interesting read about the speed of FeliCa cards, the contactless tech Suica is based on. The speed requirement that was used when designing FeliCa was that transactions were to complete within 200 msecs, while cards in London for instance only required 250ms-500ms.

While this may be overkill performance for other countries, the number was derived from Japan Railways’ rush hour statistics and simulations, which made their target to be processing 60 passengers per minute at the gate.

As Japan has one of the highest train station utilization in the world, using contactless systems like MiFare etc. to make iPhone train payment work would probably clog the gates and not be realistic; hence, when iPhone 7 began supporting station payments in Japan, Apple supported FeliCa instead of the other way around. (The fact that smartphone users here disproportionately favor iPhone over Android also probably helped.)

About the design or Suica:

https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/development/tech/pdf_6/Tec-06-40-...

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