Wesley Hilliard
Two long-time holdouts from Apple Pay Japan are coming to the payment service later this year — WAON and Nanaco.
Both WAON and Nanaco are prepaid cards that have user accounts attached to the card. These cards have been available on Google Pay but will finally make their way to Apple Pay later in the year.
According to a blog post on Ata Distance, Apple may have worked out a system for using these prepaid cards within Apple Pay. The companies were previously resistant to adding cards due to how customer accounts were attached to the cards.
Other companies use apps to create an account and attach an account card to Apple Pay. WAON and Nanaco are expected to do the same though the exact implementation isn't known.
Devices that use Google Pay can add the cards by creating a login within the card addition process. However, this can lead to issues, like if the account is deleted, the balance will disappear too.
Apple doesn't allow this type of setup from the Apple Wallet app, but external apps can add cards from users who are signed in.
Apple Pay adoption in Japan has accelerated over the past year, with several apps and services adding the payment system. For example, Line Pay cards can be added to Apple Pay and PASMO transit cards can be used with Express Transit.
There is no word about how WAON or Nanaco will add their cards to Apple Pay. The Ata Distance blog expects the cards to become available once iOS 15 launches in the fall.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
4 Comments
Since I live in Japan, I have a Japanese edition iPhone. So does every member of my family. Overall, it stinks, and here's why. The camera shutter sound is loud and cannot be turned off. I would be willing to trade all those fancy Japanese iPhone specific features for an iPhone that is a NORMAL iPhone which lacks that stupid shutter sound feature. It isn't a law here either. It's just a matter of phone makers getting together and adding the sound for what they deem "the greater good." (In Japan, a small number of nutcases have photographed unsuspecting women, which is why phone makers decided adding a sound would be a good idea, but it's ridiculous because Live Photo somewhat gets around it by making a shorter and smaller sound. I simply don't want to use Live Photo to get around the sound, instead wanting to disable the sound.)
My daughter recently travelled to the US to attend college there and I asked her to swing by an Apple store to see if that ridiculous sound can be disabled, because she absolutely hates it too. Apple said it's built into the Japanese iPhone hardware and the only way to get around it is to buy a US iPhone. Meaning, anyone who wants to get around the sound need only buy an iPhone from the US, which is possible to do using either a freight forwarder or seller who ships to Japan. You lose all the fancy Japan-only "pay" features, but since our family never uses those features anyway, there are not needed. With the US iPhone, you just insert your Japanese SIM card and away you go!
Hopefully this info helps for anyone in Japan thinking about buying an iPhone in Japan. That shutter speed sound is highly obtrusive!
I know Suica works countrywide (where the -ca cards exist from the different rail companies) but I wonder if ICOCA or other compatible cards will join the Apple Pay family.
I have Suica for when we are in Japan. And it works great. And it is nice to be able to top it off using a US credit card through Apple Pay -- for example you are in line at Mister Donut and they don't take credit cards but they do take Suica. Instant load to my Apple Pay based Suica while waiting my turn.
BUT, it would be nice to support the "home team", so to say, as we are usually based in Osaka / Kobe while in Japan and travel around the country from there. Our hard cards, pre Suica availability, are ICOCA.
JR West announced Mobile ICOCA for 2023 (probably March). It will be the same deal as Mobile PASMO: Mobile Suica backend with a different colored UI and branding.