Four operators of electronic-money services have agreed to introduce uniform bill-settlement devices at stores and restaurants next spring in a bid for their services to be more user-friendly and get more customers, sources said Wednesday.
The four are the Suica service operator led by East Japan Railway Co., the iD service operator led by NTT DoCoMo Inc., the Edy operator bitWallet Inc. and the Quickpay operator led by JCB Co.
To date, the operators have used devices with different standards for accepting cards. This makes it hard to expand the number of businesses and customers that use the services, the sources said.
The four services have a combined 40 million users and 100,000 shops and restaurants.
Under the deal, the Edy and Quickpay operators are likely to adopt standards for common devices being developed by JR East and DoCoMo.
A group of bus and railway operators in the Tokyo metropolitan area is planning to introduce a new e-money service, to be called Pasmo, in March.