E-wallet
Mobile-wallets
A mobile wallet is like e-wallet which requires prior deposits. The NFC technology allows you to “tap to pay” in stores. With a mobile wallet, the payment is conducted by tapping a terminal or scanning a QR code with a smartphone. In Japan, there are two most popular mobile-wallets, Suica and Pasmo.
Digital-wallets
The digital wallet takes advantage of technologies that electronically store credit card numbers, debit card numbers, loyalty card numbers, etc. on the cloud. In that way, your money is still in your bank account.
Examples of digital wallets are Google Pay, Masterpass & Visa Checkout. With digital wallets, we can not only go cashless, we can also go cardless.
This article focuses on the advantage of e-wallets only.
Benefits of e-wallets
1. Reduce Fraud and enhance security
Read more: Financial fraud is surrounding YOU.
Do you often double-check to make sure your credit cards are still in your pocket after payment? What if they were not there? A digital wallet eases that pain entirely. It does not mean that your smartphone is hard to be lost, but phones are protected with biometric verification or passwords.
Besides, the data stored in the e-wallet applications is encrypted. While conducting a payment on apps, an OTP (one-time PIN) on apps is applied or built-in security features of smartphones, like face recognition or fingerprints, will work. Similarly, your physical card’s numbers, including 3-or-4-digit CCV, are easily captured or copied in a flash, which can not occur with digital wallet applications. Finally, your transactions are protected by the same security and privacy practices as your physical card.
2. Save your time
Digital wallet applications are now widely accepted. Especially in convenience stores, it allows buyers to do self-checkout or at least makes a long queue of buyers to move faster, as the payment is done within a minute at most. This is because holding your phone over the payment terminal and verifying the purchase takes a few seconds compared to inserting your credit or debit cards into the POS machine.
When it comes to online shopping, unlike credit cards, everything is already confirmed inside the digital wallet applications, which even saves more time.
3. Track your expenses and wallet contents
4. Get rewards and lower costs.
One of the remarkable advantages of a digital wallet is valuable loyalty cards, gift cards, or coupons, which come in handy one day without a pile of cards in your wallet.
In order to get more users, most digital wallet platforms give out additional bonuses. More than that, the cash-back program is often available with some applications, meaning buying more goods, gain more cash simultaneously.
Let try one these mobile wallets below
- PayPay
- LINE Pay
- Rakuten Pay (楽天ペイ）
- D-barai （D払い）
- merPay
- Pixiv PAY
- pring
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Alipay
Besides making a payment, did you try sending money abroad thru your smartphone
like Smiles-The number one mobile remittance in Japan?
Let comment below to share your experience with us.
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