Payment glitch hits some merchants; SMCC, MUFG NICOS say restored

2026-07-16

Sumitomo Mitsui Card and Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS said on the 16th that card payments were difficult to use at some merchant outlets for about four hours until around noon. According to the two companies, the cause was a network outage at an international card brand, and the issue has already been restored.

Outage occurred in the morning

The two companies said the same day that between around 8 a.m. and around noon, card payments could not be used at some merchant outlets. The problem was resolved in the afternoon and service returned to normal, they said.

Impact also hit transit services

The outage also disrupted ticket purchases for transportation services and the use of transit IC cards. On JR East's Mobile Suica and JR West's Mobile ICOCA, credit card top-ups became difficult, but both services have since been restored.

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