Nationwide credit card outage hits Japan

A nationwide credit card system outage disrupted payments across Japan on Thursday, Kyodo News reported.

People were unable to make purchases at convenience stores and other merchants, while commuters at the East Japan Railway Co. could not buy passes.

The cause of the outage remains unknown.

However, Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS Co., one of the major credit card providers, said the trouble "began around 8 am 2300GMT Wednesday when card payments could not be processed at some merchants."

Another provider, Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co. also reported similar problems.

Commuters in Tokyo were also unable to use the Mobile Pasmo app for accessing public transport.