"SUICA and PASMO: mobile and near field tickets for transport"

SUICA is the electronic and mobile ticketing and e-cash system used in the greater Tokyo area and several other areas of Japan. About 20 million cards have been issued - and we estimate that over 30 million cards will be issued by 2010. We estimate that SUICA is used for around US$ 10 billion per year in transactions. These figures make SUICA one of the largest electronic cash and prepaid fare systems.

On March 18, 2007 PASMO was launched. PASMO is an electronic fare and e-cash system for about 100 transportation companies in the Tokyo area and is fully compatible and interoperable with SUICA. PASMO planned to sell 5 million PASMO cards in the first year - however almost 4 million PASMO cards were sold within the first three weeks alone. This report explains the details of the SUICA and PASMO systems, and of several aother related electronic fare and electronic cash systems currently used in Japan.