http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/06/sandisk-and-philips-team-for-mobile-payments/ Engadget Mobile Comments for SanDisk and Philips team for mobile payments http://www.engadgetmobile.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgetmobile.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/06/sandisk-and-philips-team-for-mobile-payments/http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/06/sandisk-and-philips-team-for-mobile-payments/
I charge in increments of 1,2,5 or Y10(,000) - (That's about $100USD for those of you playing at home), and that's exactally what I get.

There's no 'taxes' or 'fees', the service is completely free. I assume the profit goes to the provider (DoCoMo) in sales of handsets boasting 'equipped with IC', and then some to retailers who supply the hardware to use it at their stores on the idea that people will buy more with their Mobile Wallet rather than using real cash.

As for these cards it seems rediculous to buy a card each time to want to charge up. I would imagine that you would be able to 'charge' your card atleast somehow. you'd probably have to do this dodgily online with serial numbers as the cards would have limited~no credit communication between the handset. This ofcourse means that the only way of checking your balance would probably be to go to some WAP site etc.

The more I think about this the worse the idea sounds. Well lets just hope they do it (if they actually -do- do it) well. End rant.]]>May 6th 2006 10:19PMhttp://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/06/sandisk-and-philips-team-for-mobile-payments/http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/06/sandisk-and-philips-team-for-mobile-payments/
Felica-based solutions are nice, but enough people have to be convinced to use the service, and merchants have to be convinced to add yet more equipment. I doubt either will be the case in the US, given the way phones are marketed and sold there. Anyway, even in Japan, Felica and osaifu-keitai seem worthless outside of the mega-cities, except as a phone.

I think in this case the credit-card / bank-card providers have the upper-hand at the moment. They can seed their existing customer base with contact-less payment cards as a means of driving retailers to invest in the equipment. But I don't see this as enough of an improvement over just using an ATM card for making purchases, to get consumers and merchants to change their current practices.

As for how money is made off of Felica or osaifu-keitai purchases...if it's anything like credit cards, the retailer pays a fee (maybe 1, 2%) for each transaction. The retailers bank on your buying more stuff, and the providers make money off of the interest in the money you use to charge your account (or interest / transaction fees where the osaifu-keitai debits from your credit card). Which is basically how debit cards are used in the US...]]>May 8th 2006 12:26AM