Bitwallet to push deep into Japan’s payment culture with new capitalization
11 February, 2003
category: Contactless, Financial
The company that formed to commercialize the Edy contactless stored
value system piloted by Sony Corp. in the late 1990s has received nearly
US$50 million in additional funding. The money was raised through the
sale of additional shares to four new consortium members,
Fuji Electric Co., DC Card Co., A Plus Co. and Central Finance Co.
The new members join the previous 25 companies that including Sony, NTT
DoCoMo, KDDI Corp., Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Toyota Motor Corp.,
Fujitsu Ltd. and others.
Using Sony’s FeliCa contactless
technology, users can pay for small dollar value transactions with just
a wave of the card. A recent report from IDG Newswire suggests that
650,000 cards have been issued to date and more than 2000 merchants
accept it for payment. This compares with Bitwallet’s initial target to
have 23,000 retailers and 8.5 million cardholders by March of next year.
