Why do ATMs and shops in Japan just keep declining my wise card. It worked fine in other countries
In Tokyo, my Wise Visa worked fine for booking a Shinkansen online, but then got rejected at two shops in Akihabara and at a Lawson ticket machine. I called Wise and they said Japan is one of the few countries where merchant terminals are inconsistent and some treat prepaid cards as unsupported. They also suggested toggling online/in-store card settings in the Wise app and enabling “magstripe fallback.” Helped a bit, but I still needed to rely on my Vietcombank card at times.
Had the same issue. My Sabadell card got declined at a Kyoto train station vending machine and at a small ramen shop. Worked at a 7-Eleven ATM but not at Japan Post Bank. It’s a compatibility thing. Japan still uses older point-of-sale systems that don’t play well with international fintech cards. Also, some stores still expect magnetic stripe cards and reject anything that doesn’t “feel” local. I now use cash for small purchases and Wise just to pull out yen at ATMs.
My DBS Mastercard was hit or miss in Japan. It worked fine at Lawson to buy snacks but failed at a Don Quijote in Tokyo and at a sushi place in Hiroshima. At ATMs, it was accepted at Seven Bank but declined at MUFG and AEON. DBS later told me Japan has outdated POS terminals and many still require cards to support Japanese-specific chip-and-pin settings. I now always carry a backup Maybank debit card and use DBS only where I know it works.
Same here, my Erste Visa card worked perfectly in Europe and the US, but in Japan it kept getting declined at random. Couldn’t use it at FamilyMart or at a restaurant in Kyoto. It worked at 7-Eleven ATMs but failed at Japan Post Bank and SMBC. Bank support told me some Japanese terminals still don’t accept foreign-issued prepaid debit cards properly. Now I only rely on it for ATM withdrawals at Seven Bank, not for store payments.