Although I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of small shops and restaurants that accepted credit cards on a recent trip to Japan (albeit I was only in Tokyo), there’s always a fear that you won’t have enough cash for your trip and you’ll have to withdraw from an ATM at extortionate rates.

I just discovered (too late for my trip) that ESun bank have a tie-up ongoing with Japan’s PayPay (equivalent to Jiekou and LinePay) with suspended international transaction fees through December 31 of this year. To use it, you have to download the ESun Wallet app and tie it to one of your ESun accounts or credit cards. When you’ve done that, you can just hit the QR code scanner, and you’ll see PayPay listed among accepted payment vendors.

Note: the website and app both say you should present your QR code to the vendor, but mine doesn’t show in this section, only in the QR code scanner section.

Most of the restaurants and shops that didn’t accept credit card, did accept PayPay, but I really was surprised at how many places take credit cards (especially given that most of the Google/Trip Advisor reviews specifically stated that they didn’t).

UPDATE:

Apparently 街口 and PX pay also offer this service and the discount (until December 31 of 2024). Also includes returns on transactions):