Credit card penetration is really low so your other options are bank transfers and CVS (paying at a convenience store). COD is actually quite popular but I can't imagine any SaaS could implement that effectively.
I don't have any experience with direct bank transfer systems in Japan. I believe that a lot of Japanese Banks now offer NetBanking as a payment option for CVS payments but I'm not sure how widespread the use is. I'm also not sure what is culturally common in Japan for billing recurring online services.
Perhaps someone on HN who lives in Japan could comment.
Not sure who you're using as a gateway but I do have memories of being on the line with technical support and a Japanese translator.
I have paid through bank transfers a lot in Japan. Instead of just needing a name and an account number, additionally you need to know name of receiving bank and the branch of that bank the recipient uses.
Looking at the last two payments I made, it seems reference codes are not used. How the businesses know which order a payment relates to is a bit mysterious to me. I suppose someone looks at the accounts and tries to match by sender name and date.
No, really I'd rather hear. We're about to launch a product in Japan and all the advice I've been given from folks in Japan so far is that my standard credit card payment processing will be fine for our target user base. So, seeing a comment like the one in the parent post definitely caught my attention. If I'm going to be missing the mark, I'd rather find out now.
