Japan Ready to Launch Cellphone P2P Digital Cash

bitWallet Ltd., the company that manages digital cash service Edy (Euro-Dollar-Yen), just announced the company will launch a new service called “Edy to Edy” on 20 July. According to the company (rough translation), “[If] the Edy cash value can be sent not only by the Edy number, [but also by] the mail address or the telephone number, it is thought that payments for net auctions, personal gifts or adjustments and congratulations can be used more conveniently.” A minimum transfer fee of 50 yen will be charged for each transaction plus (Aha!) the standard 5% consumption tax; the maximum amount per transfer is limited to 50,000 yen (about US$500). P2P cash transactions between individual handsets has, until now, not been possible in Japan.

THE COMPANY PRESS RELEASE [in Japanese].