Good-bye, fare adjustment machine! Hello, e-money reader!
Every morning, thousands of commuters in Japan swipe their IC transport cards in front of electronic readers to pay for train fares and hurry off. However, one day you suddenly find yourself stuck inside the ticket gates, and an error message displayed on the screen demands you need to pay extra to get out. Sounds familiar?
As convenience is a key point for Japanese consumers, whenever commuting e-cards are used, it becomes easy to forget how much balance is still remained to be used. ‘I was often embarrassed to find out I could not go through the gate because of my insufficient e-card balance’, says Tatsuya Zembutsu. He is the founder of Coban, Tokyo-based startup that produces pass and smart phone cases with built-in reader for IC cards like Suica, Pasmo and ICOCA, some of the Japanese companies providing commuting e-passes. After you insert a card into the case, you can easily check a balance displayed on its screen. Every time you cross a gate or use your e-card, your balance data is automatically updated on the device. This small and light case helps saving time when Fare Adjustment counters are full of queues, a common issue in Japanese urban centers.
Considering how time matters for Japanese commuters (once you missed an express train, it might take a while to board on the next one, and being late is not very well accepted in the country), most users don’t count on wasting time to recharge their e-cards during their daily journey.
According to the JBMIA report, the number of IC cards issued in a period from 2005 to 2014 have more than doubled. As of October 2016, over 120 million interoperable cards were issued to be used at 4804 train stations.
Tatsuya Zembutsu had been an Electronics Engineer at the semiconductor manufacturer Fujitsu for 6 years when he decided to try something new. ‘I acquired essential design and project management skills. It was very exciting, but at the same time very stressfull’, he recalls. After quitting, he spent a year working at an ibeacon company and then decided to launch Coban in 2015. Being a frequent e-card user, Tatsuya Zembutsu realized that knowing a remaining balance in advance is crucial for Japanese commuters to be on time. “It saves time when traveling and makes life convenient”, he says.
‘Coban’ derives from the Japanese oval golden coin ‘koban’ used in Edo period feudal Japan. It represents timeless value, a precious possession treasured and passed down over the centuries. The name of the company is based on the intention to create such a timeless value.
The biggest challenge the newly made CEO faced was to finding a good partner to start mass production. At an exhibition held in Tokyo, Coban tied up with a local manufacturer Brighton Net. Later that year, Tatsuya Zembutsu was supported by crossEffect on designing a product from the internal parts to the inner case (a.k.a. Design for manufacturing), so his supplier in China could start to produce and sell it to distributors on behalf of Coban.
‘I patented the unique circuit technology of Nocoly. Therefore, my company receives a royalty fee as a franchisor from the Brighton Net’, explains the entrepreneur.
One of the things that rocketed company’s reach and sales was featuring the e-reader case Nocoly on a commercial broadcaster Fuji TV. After inevitable success, approximately 50.000 unities were sold.
As of now, Tatsuya Zembutsu works at the FinTech startup hub Finolab where he’s considering some ideas for a new IoT product to be launched soon.
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