

Square now in Japan - psawaya
https://squareup.com/jp

======
totallymike
I swear I'm never going to catch up to the fact that Square no longer means
the folks who created Final Fantasy.

~~~
ricardobeat
I've always known them as Square Enix.

~~~
michaelhoffman
Square Co. merged with Enix approximately 10 years ago.

------
rtpg
At the HN meetup in Tokyo just last week people were complaining about the
lack of something like Square in Japan. I guess things will get better now.

Transforming your iPad/iPhone into a register is also pretty neat. I wonder if
they'll look into putting an NFC reader in there and interface with all the IC
cards here. Most people don't pay for their coffee by credit card.

~~~
jakerocheleau
Coming from somebody who has always wanted to visit Tokyo, I can only imagine
what the HN meetups are like.

~~~
po
The HN meetups in tokyo might not be as you imagine. :-) Japan is not as
startup-friendly as you might suppose based on the amount of technology that
comes out of the country, but things are changing here. In the past few years
we've seen a lot more interest in entrepreneurship and startups, VC's, and
incubators.

We run a casual, low-pressure mixer kind of event about once a month. If you
come to Japan, you can follow our blog (<http://www.makeleaps.jp/blog/en/>) or
signup on Doorkeeper to get notified of events. We get lots of visitors from
abroad swinging through and we're always looking to help support other
startups in Japan or small businesses trying to enter the market here. It's a
really good crowd of people.

There's also a meetup for HN readers in the kansai area of Japan if you're
visiting there.

~~~
radikalus
How's the tech meetup scene in Tokyo these days? I'm there 3-4 times a year,
but in previous years, I haven't really found much to crash.

~~~
po
As I said, it's starting to get more interesting. Sign up for our meetup
newsletter and you'll get emailed about events and/or look me up when you come
though.

------
_frog
So I take it that Japan doesn't have EMV chips in their bank cards yet? I'm
curious to see how Square tackles that when they hopefully expand to Europe
and Australia.

~~~
cdavid
Many don't, and basic debit accounts don't offer 'standard' cards (VISA,
etc...). Japan also has a culture of using cash everywhere (I have seen people
handling the equivalent of 1000s $ in cash numerous times), and it will be
interesting to see what square can do there. Interesting challenges, and
definitely something that needs improvements in Japan.

~~~
E14n
Cash usage is mostly because people feel they are more likely to get cheated
by the banks then be robbed (which is probably a pretty fair assessment of
risk ;).

I remember in the past making a $6,000 bank transfers by going to the
convenience store ATM taking out money and going to the bank ATM. I don't know
anywhere else in the world where I would feel safe doing that.

There is also a lot of electronic money usage. Many people carry hundreds of
dollars on their rail cards.

Credit cards are considered risky in Japan. My understanding is that
chargebacks are not enshrined in law so its not guaranteed and whether it is
or not most people presume they will have to pay if their credit card is
fraudulently charged.

Convenience store payments are also popular because they are low risk and
convenient.

------
dcw303
This is definitely cool, but I'm really holding out for Stripe to come to
Japan. An easy API for web app monetization would make a big difference.

------
bedspax
A topic from yesterday "Apple Is Using Sass, And They’re Doing It Wrong"…

Also Square?
[https://divoqsdr0fzyc.cloudfront.net/assets/core-f5784136cd1...](https://divoqsdr0fzyc.cloudfront.net/assets/core-f5784136cd1228c990aba8ee86b517b8.css)

------
ricardobeat
It's interesting how their homepage design 'looks japanese'. The woman's
shoes; squeaky clean, almost artificial skin in the hand portraits; the tiled
colorful boxes; flat buttons & footer. Something reminiscent of Uniqlo.

~~~
aphexairlines
"almost artificial skin"?

~~~
ricardobeat
Yeah, look at those last two shots. Lots of retouching, no human hands look
like that.

------
pistoriusp
I'm looking forward to having them launch in the UK! Does anyone here have
access to the beta?

~~~
samwillis
I don't think Square can come to the UK in their current form. The card
reader, although could technically work, will not be allowed by the credit
card companies here. Square would need to make a small chip and pin reader for
phones, similar to what PayPal have done.

Are confusing Square with Stripe? If so I am in the beta and its brilliant.
You can get in the beta by emailing them.

~~~
madeofpalk
And you can't 'just' have a small chip reader. The PIN can only be entered in
hardware, so you end up with something ridiculous like this
[http://www.ingenico.com/en/products/payment-
terminals/mobili...](http://www.ingenico.com/en/products/payment-
terminals/mobility/ismp/)

~~~
anxx
This is curious, why can it only be entered in hardware? Is it a safety
precaution?

~~~
samwillis
Yes, if the pin number is entered into the software running on the phone then
that software can easily be changed to log people pin numbers.

~~~
anxx
True, but eventually the hardware PIN has to become a software PIN that will
be transmitted. Why is it more difficult to sniff out hardware PINs?

~~~
lawtguy
The PIN is only transmitted to the chip embedded in the card. If the PIN
matches, the smart card chip authorizes the transaction. So the PIN is never
transmitted to the card processor, just the authorization message from the
card. They only allow specialized tamper-proof terminals for Chip and PIN
cards as that's the only place you could sniff the PIN.

------
thairu
Great work!

