Payments in Japan

> For Japanese readers: in the United States, when you get your statement, you can pay in full, in which case you will not be charged interest, or you can pay any amount less than full but more than a specified minimum payment, in which case you will be charged interest on a revolving basis, starting on the day you made the transaction but being assessed in the statement cycle following the one you didn’t pay in full. You are correct, this system is virtually incomprehensible to people not professionally involved in it, and it is a cause of much angst for users and regulators of the financial industry. It is probably because of America's inscrutable culture.

At first I didn't get the implied joke jab, sincerely wondered about the same thing myself.

I live in Japan, but I lived in China before - RE the section on PayPay I actually thought it wasn’t very novel, probably because the UX is very similar to Alipay in China.

Relatedly, I think transit card payments are the most convenient for in person charges especially now that phones and Apple Watch supports it (though less secure than QR code ones since it just charges immediately without confirmation, and not offering credit); it’s biggest inconvenience is just that many wireless payments readers stores use connect to terminals via Bluetooth, which is slow and unreliable (the wired ones are just fine but bulkier and single-purpose, space is at a premium in cramped Japanese stores); and recently my circle has been using Line Pay and PayPay for p2p payments instead of furikomi, which is a welcome relief (no fees, much harder to screw up).

Wonderful article! I work in the Banking space in North America and this was a very informative read on the Payments Industry in Japan.