Tokyo, Japan, February 2003 - JCB Co., Ltd. has developed a postpayment settlement scheme for transport fares in Japan, and has begun to provide payment services for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport sponsored trial project in Sapporo City from January through March 2003.

Approximately 1,000 trial participants will use a contactless smart card to ride the Sapporo City subway system in Japan's first implementation of postpayment of public transport fares. The JCB payment service will settle accumulated charges for each month either via JCB credit card payment or a debit of the user's designated bank account. JCB is providing credit scoring and payment settlement services for the project, and the cards are being issued by Sapporo Information Network Co., Ltd.

There are currently many types of prepaid cards used for transportation fares in Japan, such as JR's Suica card. Both prepaid cards and the new postpayment scheme allow consumers to avoid having to buy a ticket each time they ride, but with postpayment they will also receive the appropriate discount on their monthly charges based on factors such as frequency or time of day of travel. Public transport operators can offer this attractive service to users at a significantly lower cost by benefiting from JCB's forty years of expertise in credit scoring and payment services as well as its network infrastructure.