Visa now supports Apple Pay in Japan

Users in Japan are now able to use Apple Pay at any retail store that supports "Visa touch."

Following the late 2020 addition of Apple Pay to Japan's Line Pay mobile wallet, Visa has introduced support for the service as well.

Line Pay is chiefly used in stores across Japan, and Visa is targeting its Apple Pay support for the same kinds of shopping. "It can be used at convenience stores and supermarkets in Japan that have the Visa touch payment support mark," says Visa on its local official site (in translation). "The number of stores that can use Visa's touch payment is expanding!"

"We are very pleased to be able to provide consumers and merchants with safe and secure digital payments and Visa touch payments using Visa's token technology through the support of Apple Pay," said Stephen Carpin, President and CEO of Visa, in a statement (in translation).

"In response to the growing interest of consumers in "non-contact" in the recent coronavirus disaster, we hope that this support for Apple Pay will be the driving force for further promotion of cashlessness in Japan," he continued. "By providing simple, speedy, secure and secure digital payments, we will provide consumers and merchants with a seamless payment experience."

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Visa is even recommending that users make Apple Pay their default payment system for use in the contactless touch system. "If you set Visa as the main card, shopping will be smoother," it says.

While Visa has now added support for Apple Pay in Japan, it's limited to cards from certain issuers. Currently the main card issuers supporting Visa and Apple Pay are Aplus, SMBC, NTT DoCoMo, Credit Saison, and Mitsui Sumitomo Bank.

Apple Pay was first launched in the US in 2014, but it has since been available in at least a limited form in Japan since 2016.

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2 Comments

chadbag 13 Years · 2029 comments

About 3 years ago

So, Apple, Visa, and others invested in Apple Pay: why can’t international users use Apple Pay? I’d like to use it when in Japan (or anywhere). I’ve not had luck using US based cards in Apple Pay outside the US. The cards themselves work in these countries but not through Apple Pay (except the Suica app lets me load my Suica card on phone using Apple Pay — For touch less in Japan you can use your Suica card in Apple Pay that you load from your US credit card but not the Apple Pay credit card directly — convoluted).

ryuworks 3 Years · 1 comment

You can, but only at shops that support EMV payments, which is what the US and Europe uses for credit card contactless payments (also much slower than whatever is used in Japan and other parts of Asia). Just let them know you are "paying by visa" and they will select the correct payment tech. Some countries are way ahead in implementing better tech, it is just not reasonable to ask them to slow down just to align with countries that are backwards.

That said, it also depends if your card works in all countries, I have had trouble paying with my card in Hawaii but not in Europe or Asia, despite both my card and the shops in question being on EMV.

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