An upcoming service will let Japanese mobile phone users make payments and withdraw cash via a mobile phone handset
Japan's convenience stories are about to become even more convenient. Forgotten your wallet and want to withdraw money or buy a cola? Soon digitally developed Japanese will be able to do all that with just a click on their mobile phones.

Dominant wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo is set to offer the world's first service that lets people withdraw and deposit money at cashpoints in convenience stores and supermarkets using mobile phones instead of cash cards.

IY Bank, a unit of retailer Ito-Yokado, and DoCoMo will jointly launch the service that will allow depositors to use DoCoMo's 504i series handsets to access the bank's ATMs, IY Bank said.

The high-speed 504i handsets are equipped with a chip onto which account information can be stored and an infrared light to access ATMs.

"When this service materialises, our customers won't need to carry our cash cards. With just DoCoMo's 504i, they can use our ATMs whenever necessary," IY Bank said.

The investment costs for the service and the impact on the bank's earnings have yet to be assessed, a bank spokesman said.

IY Bank said it aims to launch the service, tentatively named "Mobile Cash Card", by the middle of next year and to introduce other settlement services using cellphones in the future.

DoCoMo said it would cooperate with IY Bank in the new service, but declined to elaborate, saying the project that would use its tiny groundbreaking i-mode Internet-enabled mobile phones was predominantly led by IY Bank.

Analysts said the service would be the first of its kind, but said it was unclear how user-friendly it would prove. "Younger people may be more receptive, but people generally already have cash cards," said one analyst at a foreign securities firm.

"It's hard to see that using phones is more convenient than using cash cards at ATMs," he added.

DoCoMo started a service last summer that allows people to buy drinks at vending machines using their cellphones in cooperation with Coca-Cola (Japan).

Under the system, customers pay a set amount of money in advance for future purchases of drinks. Vending machines specially designed for the service read the bar code on the customers' handsets and allow them a cashless purchase.

IY Bank, set up last year by top Japanese retailer Ito-Yokado as part of attempts by high-flying non-financial firms to break into the flagging and old-fashioned banking business, offers ATM services at supermarkets and convenience stores.

The bank currently has 4,098 ATMs nationwide and aims to boost the number to 5,000 by the end of March.