Sony to offer credit card in Japan for Internet shopping

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Nov 28, 2001 by Staff

Electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp. said today it will offer a credit card loaded with a computer chip to make Internet shopping easy and secure. The "elio" card will require an annual fee of about 1,250 yen ($10) and a special reader costing about 5,000 yen ($40). The advantage of elio is that it won't require users to punch in credit card numbers.

The card will work only for purchases on Web sites that become part of an elio membership. Sony is hoping to attract 3,000 cybershops by April and expand that to 20,000 in three years. Sony Finance International president Takeshi Matsunobu said he hopes to make elio profitable in three years, drawing 2 million users and transactions of more than 450 billion yen ($3.7 billion). The card service will be offered only in Japan, although the company is considering expanding overseas in the future, Matsunobu said.