Transaction charges and a lack of customer demand mean few shops in his area accept cashless payments, he says. Many owners are also from older generations and not au fait with digital processes. “You need at least a bit of technical literacy,” he says. “I’m an exception because I can use computers. For other people from my generation it’s a hurdle.”

Japanese businesses are also drowning in paperwork, exemplified by the fact that fax is still widely used in Japan.

Every year companies have to fill out multiple forms for each employee, including for tax pensions and insurance and everything from setting up new businesses to transferring property requires paperwork to be signed off by a notary.

“Japanese society is lagging because we have tons of paperwork,” says Masayuki Ogata, chief operating officer of Freee, which provides cloud-based HR and accounting services to small businesses. Part of the reason it’s so stubbornly prevalent, he thinks, is Japan’s tradition of lifetime employment. Workers stay in jobs for decades and build up intricate, personalised filing systems that they’re reluctant to change.

A uniquely Japanese signature

While the change might appear frustratingly slow for some, it’s much more obvious to Yusaku Sato, 83. For more than 65 years he has been making hanko – small ink stamps used to authenticate documents the same way signatures are used in the West. Every Japanese person has at least one hanko and it is mandatory to make a company hanko when opening a new business. But increasing digitisation and efforts to reduce paperwork mean they aren’t required for nearly as many business processes as before, Sato says.