Well, not really.

: )

In Japan and other metropolitan centers across Asia, a mobile(-phone) cash economy is alive and well.

The difference seems to be (according to an article I read but can’t find) in when mobile phones were introduced…

There are three broad categories: cultures where mobile phones came into their own before the internet (rural Africa, for example); cultures where the internet came into its own before mobile phones (the US); and where the the two technologies came together at about the same time (metro Europe). Each of these cultures will have infrastructure and preferences that reinforce the the first mover… Japan favors phones, Japan has mobile banking and point-of-purchase mobile payments. The US does not.

Anyway… it should be interesting to see how it all plays out, as banking tends to be highly regionalized, so banks in Japan — who have deep experience in this area — don’t have branches in the US they can share their knowledge with. So it should be a little rocky. Other technologies are less regional, so knowledge transfer is easier (super-national company X has experience in Japan with A that they can easily transfer to their offices in NYC).

—

What I’m eagerly awaiting, though, is online access to MLS. What I would give to be able to spend 5 minutes online doing my clerk duties than driving to the chapel doing 5 minutes of work then driving back… especially when a Monday night works best for this (lonely, pathetic) single man — and I can’t enter the chapel because the keys magically don’t work on FHE nights.

Grr.

: )