Grab the wave of electronic payment— Japanese temple popularize QR code pay incense Money

For many Japanese, it’s important to visit the shrine for the first time in the New Year, Thanks for the blessing of the Buddha in the past year. May everything go well in the New Year and the family be well. This is one of the traditional Japanese customs, known as “prima Donna.” ”(はつもうで)

Generally speaking, when you visit the shrine, you will also be required to pay fragrant oil to the temple, which is also known as “お赛銭”.. There is no regulation on the amount of money, The Japanese normally put 5 yen in the coin. Because the pronunciation of 5 yen is very similar to the pronunciation of “Fate”. There is a moral of attracting good fate.



As the number of foreign tourists increases year by year, except for the Japanese yen, it is not unusual to find RMB, us dollar and other foreign COINS when opening the box of “balsam oil money opens box”. With the development of science and technology, Japanese shrines have set up fragrant oil money boxes that can be paid electronically.

In keeping with the trend of electronic payment in Japan, the  Futarasan Jinja shrine in Nikko city began letting people use their smartphones to scan QR code to donate money.

Nikko Futarasan Jinja shrine is located in Nikko city, tochigi prefecture, Japan. Together with sun dongzhao palace and sun mountain roong temple, it is called “two communities one temple” by local people and was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on December 2, 1999.

Nikko Futarasan Jinja has begun importing e-payments to make donations, making it easy for people to donate by simply swiping their smartphones to visit the QR code set up by the shrine, according to the nakano news.

They are the first temple in Japan to introduce regular electronic payments, according to the shrine’s staff.




There are some Shinto shrines in Tokyo that offer people to donate sesame oil money in their electronic wallets on certain days, but they don’t have a regular electronic payment system like Nikko Futarasan Jinja, the person said.

Visitors from China and Taiwan, who visit the Nikko, have grown in number each year, especially the Chinese are accustomed to using cashless payments, Many Chinese temples also use electronic payments to get believers to donate sesame oil money, this situation makes the Nikko Futarasan Jinja Shrine quite concerned.

Nikko Futarasan Jinja currently has a QR code Kanban in 9 places such as the shrine and the shrine, and provides instructions in Chinese, English and Korean; Contributions can be made up of 100 yen, 1,000 yen or 10,000 yen. Although it is still trying to operate, the system should be officially on the road this month.

Nikko Futarasan Jinja general affairs minister yoshishi saito said some of the money donated by the public will be used for local development.

E-payments are also said to prevent theft and more effectively prevent corruption such as opacity, as the money scanned for QR code will be transferred directly to the temple abbot’s account. It is expected to spread in the future.

With the global popularity of mobile payment, QR code payment sesame oil money is not uncommon in China. In other countries, this is also the case, before the Thai North Lam Fu (province) named Samrong Tai Temple launched a very technical sense of service, is “sweep the two-dimensional code donated incense money.”