Via [1]Ata Distance:

    [2]JR East and Sony announced co-development of a 'national' super
    Suica card that will replace local Japanese transit card variations
    such as ICOCA, TOICA, SUGOCA, Kitaca, PASMO, manaca, Nimoca, Hayaken
    and others into a single card that does it all. JR East and Sony
    plan to have the card in circulation starting April 2021. Too late
    for the 2020 Summer Tokyo Olympics party certainly, but great news
    for transit customers nationwide nevertheless. The clouds of
    uncertainty have parted, [3]the transit platform future shines
    bright.

    Japanese transit cards are already compatible with each other for
    transit and e-money purchases but commuter passes and point systems
    are still tied to local transit cards. You can use Apple Pay Suica
    in Nagoya and Osaka, but you can't add a Suica Commuter Plan for an
    area outside of the JR East rail network. Also it is difficult if
    not impossible for smaller transit companies to host local transit
    cards on mobile. The new super Suica card will solve these problems
    and reduce costs for everybody. I suspect the current ¥20,000 Suica
    limit will also be raised to ¥40,000 or more for Japan-wide
    [4]'Touch and Go Shinkansen' service.

    The new card will likely resemble the recently released [5]Mizuho
    Suica, a basic super Suica card with localized branding, commuter
    plans and point systems. The Mobile Suica cloud infrastructure is
    already in place so everything will be hosted on that.

    It will be great to have a single Apple Pay 'Super Suica' card that
    can do it all, from Shinkansen to commuter plans and point systems
    nationwide. I don't know about you but I can hardly wait.

  More good news for Japanese transit.
  [6]35° 41.876 N 139° 42.726 E
  Also on:

  [7]Twitter
    __________________________________________________________________

  My original entry is here: [8]JR East and Sony Creating 'Super Suica'
  Card for All Japan. It posted Sat, 06 Oct 2018 01:30:54 +0000.
  Filed under: Japan,

References

  1. https://atadistance.net/2018/09/29/jr-east-and-sony-creating-super-suica-card-for-all-japan/
  2. http://www.jreast.co.jp/press/2018/20180920.pdf
  3. https://atadistance.net/2018/03/12/the-contactless-payment-turf-wars-transit/
  4. https://atadistance.net/2018/03/10/jr-east-touch-and-go-shinkansen/
  5. https://atadistance.net/2018/08/01/interesting-implications-for-apple-pay-suica-branding/
  6. https://maps.wikimedia.org/#/14/35.6979357/139.7120997
  7. https://twitter.com/prjorgensen/status/1048385940643692544
  8. https://www.prjorgensen.com/?p=2096