JCB, a leading international payment brand, is happy to announce that JCB Co., Ltd. is teaming up with NTT DoCoMo Shikoku, Inc. and Symbol Tower Development Corporation to offer QUICPay(TM) Mobile contactless payment service at 23 stores and restaurants in Takamatsu City's Symbol Tower this month. The service is targeted to more than 1,500 office workers in the building, and is available to the general public as well, enabling users to make purchases in the building's shopping and dining areas by simply waving their mobile phone at the cash register.

QUICPay is a contactless payment solution designed for locations where speed and convenience are important. Launched by JCB in 2003, it leverages the advantage of fast offline processing so that a purchase can be made in less than one second, much quicker than payment by cash. A part of the customer's existing credit limit is assigned to a contactless IC chip, which may be embedded in a plastic card or in a mobile phone handset as in the current option launched at Takamatsu Symbol Tower. Another value added feature is that QUICPay purchases are linked to the cardholder's existing JCB credit card account so that users can enjoy earning loyalty points on all their daily purchases.

"Through this QUICPay service, we are very pleased to offer our customers not only simple and speedy payment, but also the visual and communication elements that the mobile phone adds. For example, they are able to check their card use history on the phone display at any time", said Mr. Masatoshi Sakamoto, Assistant Vice President, Strategic Market Development Department, JCB in Osaka. "On the retailer side, plans are in the works for innovative marketing tools, including services that merchants can use to have discount coupons e-mailed to the customer's mobile phone, and to have purchase discounts deducted from the customer's JCB credit card bill. These make it easy to offer incentives to buy more and to help ensure repeat customers."

JCB has been testing the QUICPay Mobile payment service since November of 2004, starting with a taxi trial project launched for 30 cabs equipped with portable readers, and is currently conducting a trial in the Tokyo metropolitan area in cooperation with the major cosmetics manufacturer and retailer FANCL Corporation. In addition, Seicomart, a large convenience store chain in Hokkaido, will be implementing a six-month trial of QUICPay from June to November 2005 at 10 of its outlets in Sapporo.

Other recent advances in JCB product development include the OfficaTM corporate solution, as well as projects involving biometric authentication.