I wonder if the Hanko has something to do with it as well. A hanko is a small personal seal that you use to sign documents, you can't hanko an email and although you could print the email up, it's not quite the same experience and that physicality is not implicit like it is in the fax process. E-signatures and the like haven't taken off there, and having to go to various institutions to hanko the paperwork in the flesh is still part of a lot of processes.

At the very least, the hanko is another example of holding on to old processes for reasons other than efficiency and effectiveness.