News 80% of Japan's vending machines don't accept new banknotes

Nearly 90% of bank ATMs, train ticket machines and retail cash registers are ready for the new bills. Still, only half of restaurant and parking ticket machines, the Japan Vending Machine Manufacturers Association said. It added that almost 80% of the nation's 2.2 million drink vending machines also need upgrades. "It might take until year-end to respond to this," said Takemori Kawanami, an executive at ticket machine company Elcom. "That's too slow, but we are short of components," he added, as client orders for upgrades exceeded expectations. Many Japanese fast-food restaurants, such as ramen shops and beef bowl stores, use ticket machines to cut labour costs, but some small business owners battling inflation are unhappy with the extra investment needed. "The machine replacement has no sales impact, so it's only negative for us, on top of rising costs of labour and ingredients," said Shintaro Sekiguchi, who spent about 600,000 yen for ticket machines at three ramen shops he runs in Tokyo.

Click to expand...