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Japan facing credit card number shortage

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Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#51

Post by AdrianB1 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #43
donor20 wrote: post #30

This is a ridiculous story. Japan has a population of 150M. If you can't give folks a number from SIXTEEN digits - something is wrong with the folks giving out the numbers. Some answers to the excuses. The 6 digits at front, if a company legit runs out of numbers, ask for another prefix. The reality. Instead of using the numbers properly (random ID to tie to a user account) they are probably putting some kind of stru…

> You can't get 125 million folks into this address space? I think some people are now using a new card number per transaction , with these disposable card numbers, aren't they?

We are lucky they don't use a disposable IPv4 address per page, that would break the Internet /s.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#52

Post by JoeAltmaier »

chrisseaton wrote: post #47
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

I'd like a unique card number with every transaction, that I set online to exactly the amount I'm spending. And it expires after that one use. Eliminates risk of 'stealing' a credit card, mostly. But it would use a butt-ton of numbers. Maybe a UUID?

> that I set online to exactly the amount I'm spending Sounds like it would take longer at checkout though?

Lots of my spending is online. Like everybody else, considering Amazon's success.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#53

Post by henearkr »

wenc wrote: post #27
henearkr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first digits are a header identifying the type of the card, (visa, mastercard...) and probably other characteristics. The main problem is that in Japan everybody has like 5 credit cards, because every big company has its own financial branch and issues cards (maybe to profit from a "reservoir" effect of the accounts?). So you have a credit card linked to your clothes shop, one from your supermarket, one from Raku…

> The main problem is that in Japan everybody has like 15 credit cards This is a fascinating departure from my expectation, because when I was in Japan, I distinctly noticed that credit cards were not accepted everywhere. One could load money into Suica/Pasmo cards and use those at convenient stores, but I learned that carrying cash was imperative -- Japan seemed very much to be a cash-oriented society.

No your observation is correct. Japanese people have many credit cards but also pay a lot in cash, and small restaurants for example do not accept cards.

So they are now in the absurd situation where they do not have enough credit card numbers, but still many shops do not accept card payment.

(I edited my previous comment for realism: it's more 5 cards/person than 15)

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#54

Post by lmilcin »

donor20 wrote: post #30

This is a ridiculous story. Japan has a population of 150M. If you can't give folks a number from SIXTEEN digits - something is wrong with the folks giving out the numbers. Some answers to the excuses. The 6 digits at front, if a company legit runs out of numbers, ask for another prefix. The reality. Instead of using the numbers properly (random ID to tie to a user account) they are probably putting some kind of stru…

This story is ridiculous for another reasons. I worked for card payment (implemented credit card terminal application, internalized couple thousand pages of requirements).

Credit card numbers are assigned by payment organizations in the form of prefixes (BINs -- https://binlist.net/, https://www.bindb.com/bin-list.html)

The worst that will happen is that Visa/Mastercard will issue more BINs to those organizations. There isn't going to be a shortage of credit card numbers.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#55

Post by grumple »

michannne wrote: post #24
jandrese wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The identifier is hidden from the user so if it's huge and complex that is no problem. My point is that we're talking about putting a lot of effort into overhauling the system to support a scheme that is arguably already obsolete. If we're putting in the effort we should just remove the old insecure digits entirely and focus on a cleaner modern solution.

The problem with that is the purpose of a credit card system is convenience, especially the convenience involved in being able to represent the identifier in an easily compact manner. When it's a few groups of digits, I can print it onto a card or piece of paper, and just plug the digits in whenever I need to validate the number and run a transaction. You can't do that with a token. What happens when I want to use my…

We could use nfc or some other protocol for submitting online payments via the physical card. This should help reduce fraud. Each token could be randomly generated based on some data stored in a chip on the card, time, etc.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#56

Post by xxpor »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #10
chrischen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cards can have nfc, and most people already have nfc readers in the form of phones. I think this is the easiest way to support cryptographic payments.

I’m honestly surprised the move to contactless hasn’t occurred faster, as the costs for hardware seem lower for nfc versus chip.

In the US retailers don't want to lose customer tracking they can do with fixed card numbers. This is why you see nonsense like "Kroger Pay" and other store specific payment apps. The hardware exists in nearly every terminal that supports EMV (Chip and pin/signature), the retailers just haven't turned it on.

Meanwhile, with my Samsung phone and its mag strip emulation, I can use my phone nearly everywhere anyway even if the store doesn't want to support NFC.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#57

Post by r00fus »

donor20 wrote: post #30

This is a ridiculous story. Japan has a population of 150M. If you can't give folks a number from SIXTEEN digits - something is wrong with the folks giving out the numbers. Some answers to the excuses. The 6 digits at front, if a company legit runs out of numbers, ask for another prefix. The reality. Instead of using the numbers properly (random ID to tie to a user account) they are probably putting some kind of stru…

Wouldn't the Luhn algorithm checksum [1] limit the available digits? It is specifically there so a one-off error doesn't result in a charge going to a valid other account.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#58

Post by Aeolun »

donor20 wrote: post #30

This is a ridiculous story. Japan has a population of 150M. If you can't give folks a number from SIXTEEN digits - something is wrong with the folks giving out the numbers. Some answers to the excuses. The 6 digits at front, if a company legit runs out of numbers, ask for another prefix. The reality. Instead of using the numbers properly (random ID to tie to a user account) they are probably putting some kind of stru…

The only real solution to being able to do things the Japan way is to increase the number of digits.

Think of all the extra information we could encode in the number!

They also cannot ask for an extra prefix, since all their forms and systems assume the same prefix is used everywhere.

(Note, I have no idea if this is actually the case, I’m just extrapolating from my experiences here)

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#59

Post by lostapathy »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

I'd like a unique card number with every transaction, that I set online to exactly the amount I'm spending. And it expires after that one use. Eliminates risk of 'stealing' a credit card, mostly. But it would use a butt-ton of numbers. Maybe a UUID?

Or just reuse them eventually. Wake the number up again for another very specific transaction.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#60

Post by dqv »

Slartie wrote: post #25
saas_sam wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they switched CC numbers TO IPV6 addresses? Insane or genius?

Only slightly more insane than keeping the handy 4x4 format, but extending it from base 10 numbers to base 16, which I would really love to see :D

They would need to EOL over-the-phone payments to do this. People have horrible diction and it's hard to tell the difference between b, c, d, and e when a particularly lazy lipped person says these letters (in addition to non-hex letters like g, p, t, and v). Then they use their own ambiguous phonetic system (b as in ball, c as in call, d as in doll will confuse anyone trying to distinguish between the three). Oh and this compounds on ambiguous sounding digits like 13 and 30; 14 and 40; 15, 16, 50 and 60; 17 and 70; 18 and 80; 19 and 90). It can't be done with DTMF digits anymore either.

All in all not a bad direction to go in. I wouldn't really miss phone payments.

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