Edy electronic money reshapes consumer spending patterns

[JUNewsBot]

JUNewsBot Has Just Posted the Following:

Cellular telephones have joined plastic cards in the electronic era, offering new ways to avoid carrying cash and coins.The acronym for this new spending system is Edy, a prepaid electronic money system now embraced by more than 2,500 businesses in Okinawa alone.

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[DougP]

Edy is awsome!!

[silviasichigo]

I love my EDY Keitai and my EDY Card.........:)

[P_chan]

My phone does edy but I don't have it linked to my account. I'll have to ask my wife to set it up for me someday.

[DougP]

My phone does edy but I don't have it linked to my account. I'll have to ask my wife to set it up for me someday.

If your phone does Edy it should be as simple as going to one of the Edy refill machines and putting some cash into the machine and then the machine transfers it to your phone... Its simple trust me. I don't need an account to do it.

[Tempestuous]

So, am I understanding this correctly? It is essentially a prepaid gift card.....but utilizing your phone instead of a physical card?

[DougP]

pretty much

[Tempestuous]

Hmmmm, that's different. I dunno, would take some getting used to.

[DougP]

Edy is kinda nice to have sometimes. I can pre load up to 30,000円(yen) on my cell phone. Some taxis are now equiped to take Edy several stores and restaurants as well. Its fast and easy and you don't have to worry about the extra charges that come with using atms or credit cards. Also there's no bothersome change to deal with :) Edy FTW!!

[DougP]

There is a service called DCMX which basically allows you to use you phone like a credit card and what ever you spend just gets added to your next phone bill. A little too dangerous for my tastes

[Tempestuous]

So do you text message it, or exactly how does it take the money off or add the fee to your bill in the case of DCMX?

[DougP]

from what I understand it (the phone) acts just like Edy. You wave it over the DCMX pad and it transfers information. Now on the billing side I think the actual store bills your service provider and the tack it on to you cell phone bill.

DCMX/Edy pad
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/DougGTR32/po_39.jpg

Edy refill machine
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/DougGTR32/edybender2.jpg

[Tempestuous]

So it has a little chip & wha-la service pd for. Kinda like those new express pay credit cards in the US that you just tap it and it bills ya.
I'm getting it. :) sorry, a little slow sometimes.

[DougP]

No worries its still pretty new to me too :)

[DoctorP]

Yeah...edy was comes in really handy while traveling!

[socalheart]

so that's what that is! hmm. i don't see us using it. how would you get your money back, if you don't use it all?

[DoctorP]

It's called a refund! Not hard to do.

[Bones]

Well, I'm not sure if I would be willing to give this a try just yet. I mean, in order for the transaction to succeed, the would have to be some kind of signal exchange between two devices. How difficult would it be for a hacker to develop some kind of scanner capable of receiving this signal, steal your account information, and then feed that signal into his own device? Would he then not be able to make his purchases, and drain your account while he goes on a serious shopping spree?

NBTP

[DougP]

Well, I'm not sure if I would be willing to give this a try just yet. I mean, in order for the transaction to succeed, the would have to be some kind of signal exchange between two devices. How difficult would it be for a hacker to develop some kind of scanner capable of receiving this signal, steal your account information, and then feed that signal into his own device? Would he then not be able to make his purchases, and drain your account while he goes on a serious shopping spree?

NBTP

There's not account information with Edy, its like a prepaid card. The other
DCMX(still no account information) would require the shop to bill your cell phone provider. Not to mention that signal is not going to be intercepted easily. You have to hold your phone right up to the pad so that means anyone trying to "steal" your signal would have to be practically holding your phone.

[GODZIBOY]

first i heard of this one

[DougP]

Actually its been around now for sometime. Not sure why it took so long to make the english papers. Then again so has Daiko but it seems like a new concept to those who live on base. as the world turns I guess.

Edy rocks btw!!