Use the pay phone
When mobile phones first came into our lives, more than a decade ago, we were delighted by the convenience of calling friends and family with such tiny, portable devices. Since then, they have changed at a bewildering pace, adding internet hook-up, camera, e-mail and even music player. The latest twist, in Japan, is the mobile phone as a 'purse' - you can use it like cash, to buy things.
Japan's first purse phone was released in July last year by NTT DoCoMo, the major mobile service provider. It carried an IC - or 'non-contact integrated circuit' - chip designed to handle purchases. Just like Hong Kong's Octopus 'smart' cards, the phone released monetary value, after storing up to 50,000 yen's worth ($3,250). Now, 18 out of 70 Japanese mobile phone models have this function, and 7 million Japanese own them.
Those people can take their phones shopping to about 9,000 convenience stores and nearly 15,000 drugstore chain outlets, department stores, consumer electronics shops, music stores, games centres and the like. They can also pay the same way for canned and bottled drinks at 6,000 automatic vending machines across Japan.
Hundreds of new retailers are subscribing to this system every month, and industry watchers predict that it's not just a fad, but is in fact here to stay.
A further refinement started this week: NTT DoCoMo's purse phones can now be used like credit cards. This way, customers needn't worry about how much they have charged up in their virtual purses. All three major credit companies in Japan are now competing to win over mobile phone owners to their purse systems.
You have to admit it's clever. Consumers can have their phone credit card debt paid off automatically every month, deducted from their bank account. Using phone credit will win shoppers points that are transferable to future purchases. And retailers can use them to generate lists of shoppers, for use in marketing.
The JR East railway plans to launch a new 'touch-and-go' service next month, based on purse-phone technology. Users will pay for trips by simply holding out their phones for scanning at the ticket gate. Keiji Tachikawa, then president of NTT DoCoMo, once told me in an interview mobile phones will be used in future as global-positioning devices, passports, driver's licences and other forms of ID.
Are we really ready for such all-in-one mobile phones? I'm not sure if I am. I would be afraid of losing everything, all at once, if I left my mobile phone somewhere. But I'm curious enough to start using my phone purse for train fares. In fact, I think I'll begin next month.
