Comment by tkgally | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tkgally | Hacker News Reader

Long-time Japan resident here. The IC cards do work quickly and smoothly, but the retail payment system overall is a mess because different stores accept different combinations of dozens of electronic payment brands.

When shopping, I prefer to use the Suica app in my iPhone as it’s just a quick touch, but some stores won’t accept it so I have to use the Nanaco app—which requires a face recognition step—or pay in cash. I haven’t bothered to set up a QR code app yet. Twice, when I tried to install PayPay, the most common one, I got stuck on an authentication step and gave up.

Even shops within the same department store accept different combinations of payment systems. In my local Takashimaya, I can use Suica to buy food in the basement but not in the restaurants on the upper floors. Shops in the nearby Sogo Department Store do not accept Suica, only Nanaco, except for the Starbucks on the third floor, which does accept Suica.

Convenience stores seem to accept nearly everything, as you can guess from the number of logos on this sign:

https://news.mynavi.jp/article/osusumecredit-107/images/003l...

Some relatives are arriving in Japan next Tuesday for a three-week visit, and they asked me what they should do about credit cards, digital money, cash, etc. I realized that, despite living here, I barely understood the situation myself, so I had Gemini Deep Research prepare a report for them:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WY4AM0mJS94uwPMK8XjIQMLf...

Another point to add is that in the 1980s and 1990s big security problems emerged with the magnetic cards that were used widely then for transportation and telephone calls. Here is what Perplexity has to say about that:

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/i-want-some-information-in-...

I well remember the “open street markets in urban areas like Shibuya ... known for selling counterfeit cards.”

> Some relatives are arriving in Japan next Tuesday for a three-week visit, and they asked me what they should do about credit cards, digital money, cash, etc.

I've only been to Japan very briefly, but between an international credit card (Visa or Mastercard) and a Suica in Apple Pay, I never had any issues.

Maybe this is due to having been only to very touristy areas, but almost everywhere I had to pay took at least one of the two, and thanks to being able to top up the Suica directly in Apple Wallet from my credit card, running out of a balance there was never an issue.

Of course you'll need some cash for some smaller food stalls and shops, but getting that wasn't any issue either: ATM fees didn't seem particularly high as far as I remember (and my bank reimburses them).

I was fascinated by the sometimes dozens of different contactless (stored value and otherwise) and QR code based payment methods accepted at some stores, but with the exception of a few vending machines (that also took cash), I don't think I've seen any place taking only these but not also either Suica or Visa/Mastercard.

Quite the opposite, actually – ubiquitous ice cream vending machines on train platforms that accept the same card for payment people need to get into the station in the first place seem like a real health hazard :)

I heard you can pay a lot of bills via PayPay, so I wanted to use that too but I haven't been able to beat the authentication boss either.

So so many weird quirks, my latest one is, I cannot withdraw cash from any ATM but a 7/11 ATM with a Seven bank card. All other ATMs just won't accept it anymore...how does one even begin to resolve something like this ?

I found Suica/Pasmo/Icoca to be the golden trinity for most regions.

Those are interchangeable – you can (generally) use Suica if a store accepts Icoca and vice versa, etc.

paypay to setup for QR code is just 2 minutes, and you get lots of bonuses, just have to suffer the trial by fire of your katakana matching your resident card ID name, which, everyone has their own version of.

I tried it said ten days to verify, then it failed...because my name was wrong. Gave up.

> but the retail payment system overall is a mess because different stores accept different combinations of dozens of electronic payment brands.

This is a fun thing to keep in mind when people tell you Japan is a "homogenous society".

(It's not high-trust either.)

(What do you mean ?)

When people discuss Japan being a homogeneous society, that typically refers to it being a very ethnically uniform society.

I really, really don't see how that connects to... payment systems. Surely you're not trying to claim that what people actually mean typically is that Japan is homogeneous in every arbitrary way possible, right? That's a bit too much even for a strawman, even if I factor in the kind of forum this is.

> When people discuss Japan being a homogeneous society, that typically refers to it being a very ethnically uniform society.

Even if you ignore tourists that's not really true of Tokyo either. Japan doesn't collect ethnicity statistics though - the numbers for this you may have seen are misreadings of something else.

> Surely you're not trying to claim that what people actually mean typically is that Japan is homogeneous in every arbitrary way possible, right?

That's absolutely what people online think about Japan, they think it's a stuffy collectivist society where everyone agrees with each other and there are no immigrants.

> Even if you ignore tourists that's not really true of Tokyo either. Japan doesn't collect ethnicity statistics though - the numbers for this you may have seen are misreadings of something else.

Which is all very interesting, but remind me, how does this tie into payment systems again?

> That's absolutely what people online think about Japan, they think it's a stuffy collectivist society where everyone agrees with each other

... and then they play the latest Yakuza and wash that down with a few episodes of Tokyo Revengers? It'd would appear that one generalization doesn't beat another.

> and there are no immigrants.

YouTube has been overflowing with thinly veiled grifts lately about how everything in Japan is going to shit right now, and how it's because of the damn tourists and immigrants (heavily peppered with false crime rate figures and false immigration statistics of course).

Still, pretty unrelated to payment systems. I can't shake the feeling that this is the exact same type of conflict sowing one can see under more mainstream topics. Vague mention of something, then a massive tangent, and all of a sudden we're discussing deeply controversial political topics. If you're not doing this with malicious intent, you might be in an unhealthy loop that I'd advise you try quitting. This is not helping anyone, which is what I intended to be my point.

I would say that the common image of Japan is that it's a weird place that only works because it's full of Japanese people.

Whereas I would like to promote the idea that it's a normal place containing normal people (…many of them Chinese tourists, lately), and you can have the good things they have too if you simply copy their policies. Or in other words, there's no need for conflict.

I don't know if payment systems are one of those anymore though. FeliCa is the best because it's so fast, but any kind of tap to pay is IME fine. Certainly better than having to use a ticket machine or buy a special card or work out change to give to the bus driver.

The banking system in Japan is homogeneously terrible ;)

One reason for the success of IC cards as electronic wallets is because what banks offer is so inconvenient.

But really, what works in Japan is cash. You are the odd one for paying electronically.

It is slowly changing though. You can almost go cashless now. 10 years ago, cards were mostly just for withdrawals. 20 years ago, good luck finding an ATM that accepts your card. Personal experience, in 2005, we spent half a day finding one, in Tokyo.

As for being "high trust", it is certainly not as a foreigner, trying to do business in Japan. The "high trust" part is more about petty crime being really low, so you can leave your bag unattended in a café and it will still be there when you get back, in fact, it is a common way of "reserving" a table.

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