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As we’ve seen before in our regular analyses of what the major wireless networks in Japan are up to, KDDI is leading in mobile music and Willcom in smartphones, so today we’ll examine how NTT DoCoMo is setting the trend with mobile e-money services.
After launching mobile wallet services based on the FeliCa IC chip allowing for prepaid/debit-card services, DoCoMo has introduced postpaid services similar to credit-card payments.
The new service, branded DCMX, has two versions: DCMX mini targets the snap purchases most of us make on a daily basis. Users can spend up to ¥10,000 per month with DCMX mini, and the amount appears as part of the regular phone bill from DoCoMo.
To use DCMX mini, the user has to register at the DCMX i-mode site and download a Java appli. As you might have guessed, DoCoMo is aiming for children in the age group between 12 and 18. Parents can easily track where pocket money is spent because they’re the ones getting the bill each month.
The second DCMX variant is a full-fledged mobile credit-card service embedded in the phone. User must qualify for a normal card in order to register for DCMX, however the payment platform is open to all credit card companies.
After registering at the mobile DCMX site, the user also has to download a Java appli to connect to the credit company for payments. Authentication is done through the mobile phone’s unique ID and the customer’s PIN. Transactions over ¥10,000 require a signature as well, which is interesting in a nation where names are written as standard Kanji characters without much variation.
Both flavors of DCMX work on all mobile phones that have the FeliCa chip inside but, of course, the service requires merchants to install a reader/writer. DoCoMo plans to have 100,000 of the terminals in service by the end of this year and 150,000 by the end of March 2007.
With the introduction of DCMX DoCoMo has made an aggressive push towards becoming a mobile e-cash enabler. Credit card companies and banks have no real choice but to follow Big D’s lead if they want a piece of the mobile payment pie. Within a year, we expect KDDI and Softbank Mobile/Vodafone to adapt DCMX as well, just as they did with Suica. It already looks like a done deal from where I’m sitting.
— Arjen van Blokland
09:47 PM 
Mark Hiratsuka •
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