Japanese yen. Photo: AFP/VNA
Mr Ueki told Al Jazeera: “There was a customer who offered to pay by credit card and said they had no cash. I told them to go to the convenience store to withdraw money from the ATM.”
Although the trend of cashless payments is widespread around the world, Mr. Ueki does not plan to change anytime soon. "It's not necessary because we're comfortable with what we have," he said. Mr. Ueki's views are also quite popular with many other Japanese.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2022 said cashless payments have doubled in Japan over the past decade, reaching 36%. However, this level is still not commensurate with Korea and Singapore where most transactions are cashless.
The fact that Japan still favors cash is an example of this East Asian country's slowness with the electronic economy. Japan is still the world's leading country in the field of high technology. But the world's third-largest economy remains stuck in many respects with the past.
Many Japanese government services are still not accessible online and rely on paper applications or in-person visits to local government offices. Fax machines are still used regularly in offices instead of electronic mail (email) and seals still take precedence over electronic signatures.
Many offices in Japan still use fax machines. Photo: Getty Image
The Electronics Agency of Japan, the government agency in charge of digital transformation, estimates that 1.900 intergovernmental processes still depend on outdated technology for storing CDs and floppy drives. During the COVID-19 epidemic, the Japanese press reported on the case of an official in Yamaguchi Prefecture sending a floppy drive containing people's information to a local bank to distribute relief money. However, a mistake caused one resident to receive up to 46,3 million yen ($331.000).
According to the new Global Digital Competitiveness Ranking published by the International Institute for Management Development (Switzerland), Japan ranks 29th out of 63 economies.
Martin Schulz, an economist at IT services firm Fujitsu, says Japan's reliance on an aging system is partly due to the country's success in achieving international capabilities with just old technology.
“When you train systems to work like a regular machine, replacing them with an electronic system is similarly efficient but costly,” said Mr. Schulz, who is also an adviser to the Japanese government. huge conversion without outstanding additional results, the calculation is very different”.
Ryuichi Ueki at a noodle shop in Tokyo that only accepts cash. Photo: Al Jazeera
The Japanese government has long recognized the need to tackle the country's digital backwardness. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry warned in a 2018 report that the country could face a "digital cliff" as businesses fail to update their electronic systems, leaving them vulnerable to failure. could lose 12 trillion yen a year from 2025.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to accelerate Japan's digital transformation, which includes spending 5,7 trillion to upgrade digital infrastructure in some areas with labor shortages due to the situation. population aging. In addition, Japan's Digital Minister Taro Kono declared "war" over floppy drives and quipped about his fax machine while living in "advanced society".
The COVID-19 epidemic is a wake-up call for Japan. Mr. Schulz said that when other countries went deep into the path of digitization and through the COVID-19 epidemic to find new ways of doing business, Japan discovered that it was only "laying the groundwork" for the digital era. digital.
Japan's aging population also shows that digital transformation can be an uphill battle. After decades of low birth rate, the Japanese government predicts that by 2030 there will be a shortage of 450.000 workers in the information and communication technology sector.
