... wireless pickpocketing era

[Ian G Batten]

On 9 May 2007, at 01:58, Peter Fairbrother wrote:

> "Smartcard heralds cashfree era"
>
> http://money.guardian.co.uk/saving/banks/story/0,,2074949,00.html
>
> Basically a contactless smartcard a la oyster for payments up to =A310.

I paid for my coffee yesterday evening with my Suica card, which does =20=

Oyster-like jobs for JR trains in and around Tokyo, and as of last =20
month (hooray!) also replaced Passnet on buses and subways (although =20
for that your Suica card is a special case of a Pasmo card).  There's =20=

a huge number of shops that take Suica.  I don't know what the limit =20
on transactions is.

Moreover, I've paid for two meals now with no authorisation on my =20
credit card: hand it over, they pop it in a machine and hand it =20
back.  There's some C&P, which amazingly interworks (or is ignored: I =20=

didn't think to type a wrong PIN to check), but I couldn't convince a =20=

Shinkasen ticket machine that claimed to do C&P to take my cards last =20=

night at Shinagawa station, so I'm off today to find some cash to buy =20=

them with --- I don't fancy negotiating buying a train ticket in very =20=

broken English.

ian