NTT Docomo craftily (?) cripples international contactless payments

This is thus far confirmed for the Galaxy S4 SC-04E but likely applies across the board to their other handsets.

On international models of the GS4, NFC-A secure element is on-board the phone with the antenna in the battery. On the SC-04E, this set up is replaced with a FeliCa secure element for domestic transactions. Therefore the NFC-A element on the SC-04E is included in the SIM card.

What this means is, if you unlock your NTT Docomo Galaxy S4 SC-04E, and attempt to use it with mobile payments overseas, you'll have essentially two options:

1. pay Docomo data roaming rates
2. swap sims and reboot every time you want to do a payment.

There is a bit of discussion as to anything "crafty" is going on here. At this point it is unclear if the phone can be loaded with the NFC-A elements onboard. It should also be pointed out that there is an advantage for having the NFC information linked to a SIM card - ease of swapping hardware.