Edy (wallet)
Edy is an electronic wallet made in Japan by bitWallet . It uses Sony's FeliCa technology, which is also used in the competing Suica system of JR East . While both systems can be used for purchases in shops and machines, the Suica card can also be used as a ticket. The amount is debited by simply placing the card on a reader. In contrast to the German cash card , the card does not have to be removed from the wallet and the money is transferred without any time delay, which means that payment is quicker and less complicated than with cash.
Although the name Edy was formed as an acronym from the euro , dollar and yen , the card only works in yen.
On April 18, 2006, Intel announced a participation of 5 billion yen (approx. 35 million euros) in bitWallet, with the aim of developing another technology for using payments on the PC.
Cellphone
Edy can be used integrated in mobile phones. Cell phones are currently offered by NTT-DoCoMo, KDDI Corporation and SoftBank. Vodafone (before Vodafone was shipwrecked in Japan and sold the Japanese subsidiary to SoftBank) tried to introduce its own incompatible mobile payment system, but had to give up since Vodafone only had about 15% of the market in Japan and therefore could not introduce its own national payment system.
These telephones can be used as an Edy card by simply placing them on the reader, and they also allow you to check card activity and account status and to transfer top-ups online.
Playstation 3
Since January 24th 2007 it is possible to use Edy with the PlayStation 3 from Sony with a firmware update (version 1.50) . In the Playstation Store, which you can access with the Playstation 3, you can also pay for paid content using Edy. A special read / write device must be connected to the Playstation 3 via USB .