Blog entry by Clara Brien
TOKYO, July 3 (Reuters) - Japan began circulating its first new banknotes in 20 years on Wednesday, featuring three-dimensional portraits of the founders of financial and female education institutions in an attempt to frustrate counterfeiters. Many Japanese fast-food restaurants such as ramen shops and beef bowl stores rely on ticket machines to cut labour costs, but some small business owners battling inflation are unhappy at the extra investment the new bills entail.
learn Existing bills will stay in use, but train stations, parking lots and ramen shops are scrambling to upgrade payment machines as the government pushes consumers and businesses to use less cash in its bid to digitise the economy. "Our ramen doesn't have high unit prices, so running the shop for a day or two would hardly pay for the replacement," he added. ($1=161.6500 yen) (Reporting by Irene Wang; Writing by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Stephen Coates) "Cash is a secure means of payment that can be used by anyone, anywhere, and at any time, and it will continue to play a significant role" even when alternative payment methods prevail, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda told a Wednesday ceremony celebrating the new notes.
"It might take until year-end to respond to this," said Takemori Kawanami, tutor 1st grade an executive at ticket machine company Elcom. "That's too slow, but we are short of components," he added, as client orders for upgrades exceeded expectations. Roughly 90% of bank ATMs, train ticket machines and retail cash registers are prepared to accept new bills, but only half of restaurant and parking ticket machines are ready, the Japan Vending Machine Manufacturers Association says.
Cashless payments in Japan have almost tripled over the past decade to account for 39% of consumer spending in 2023, but still lag global peers and should rise to 80% to boost productivity, the government says. "The machine replacement has no sales impact, so it's only negative for us, on top of rising costs of labour and ingredients," said Shintaro Sekiguchi, who spent about 600,000 yen for ticket machines at three ramen shops he runs in Tokyo. ($1=161.6500 yen) (Reporting by Irene Wang; Additional reporting by Takahiko Wada; Writing by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Stephen Coates) Though existing bills stay in use, train stations, parking lots and ramen shops are scrambling to upgrade payment machines while the government pushes consumers and businesses to use less cash in its bid to digitise the economy.
While Kishida talked up the latest technology to fight counterfeiting, it is not a major problem in Japan. The 681 fake banknotes police detected in 2023 represented a sharp drop from a record high of 25,858 in 2004. Key companies are raising workers' wages at the fastest rate in 33 years, but lingering inflation, fed by the rapid weakening of the yen currency, keeps consumption and the mood of business sluggish, recent economic data show.
