Article mentions "credit card java applets on SIM cards". I've never used one of those, and I know nobody in the western world who does.

I always presumed that these sim java applets are crapware that is mercifully hidden on todays smartphones.

It's also my impression that Mastercard and Visa paid a hefty stupidity tax by thinking in the 2000s that it would be important to have their software on SIM cards, not foreseeing that smartphone apps would just bypass that whole layer.

Anybody know of an application in the western world, on smart phones, where these java applets are really used?