Apple Pay Japan Adds Support for Six New Credit Cards, Launches ‘New Life’ Promotion

Apple Pay Japan on Wednesday launched a new two-month long promotion offering cash back, points, and other benefits to users of Apple’s payments system. The service also added six new credit card issuers.

AppleInsider:

As noted by Japanese blog Ata Distance, Apple posted a dedicated webpage for its “New Life” campaign earlier today. With the promotion in place, customers using a variety of company-issued credit cards between March 1 and April 30 can reap benefits like cash back on purchases and special store rewards.

The promotion offers benefits from a number of Japanese partners, including:

• JR East: a 1,000-yen credit with a renewed commuter ticket or new ticket purchase made via the company’s Suica app
• Mini Stop: 50 yen off soft serve ice cream
• Sukiya: 70 yen off all main menu items, when customers pay with Apple Pay
• Drug store Matsumoto Kiyoshi will offer in-store rewards starting April 1

Apps and online services will also be participating in the promotion, including Japan Taxi, Toho Cinemas, Demae-Can, Jalan, Minne, Base and Giftee.

Six New Card Issuers for Apple Pay Japan

Apple also announced the addition of six new card issuers to the list of participating card issuers. Apple added APLUS, EPOS, JACCS, Cedyna, POCKETCARD and Life. The company also announced upcoming support from UCS, although no timeline was announced for UCS Apple Pay integration. Most of the new issuers will also be offering a reward or benefit as part of Apple’s spring campaign.

Apple Pay’s October 2016 launch in Japan hit a few rough patches in its first days, due to issues with the JR East Suica transit cards system, but everything since then has smoothed out nicely.