The Japanese Bank Consortium will release an instant domestic payments mobile app, “MoneyTap,” using Ripple’s technology in the fall of 2018, Ripple’s blog reported yesterday, March 6.
The 61-bank consortium, led by SBI Ripple Asia, is representative of more than 80 percent of all of Japan’s banking assets, according to Ripple. Takashi Okita, CEO of SBI Ripple Asia, said in Ripple’s blog post:
“Together with the trust, reliability and reach of the bank consortium, we can remove friction from payments and create a faster, safer, and more efficient domestic payments experience for our customers.”
Three of the banks in the consortium, SBI Net Sumishin Bank, Suruga Bank and Resona Bank, will begin using the app this coming fall, while the rest of the banks will join in gradually. MoneyTap will allow users to make purchases 24 hours a day, every day of the week.
Ripple has long focused on building relationships with banks to use its payment technologies. In February, Ripple announced two new financial service partnerships; one with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority for use of its cross-border payment technology for banks within the country and another with Western Union, who is testing Ripple’s Blockchain-based settlement system for transactions.
This month, a South Korean bank also announced that it planned on using Ripple’s cross-border payment technologies for remittances, prompted by a Japanese-based test of Blockchain-based remittances involving Ripple and SBI Group.