Four Japanese Banks Including the Seven Bank, Joins MoneyTap

Financial giant SBI has published in their report that four major Japanese banks have invested in its cashless mobile-payment application, MoneyTap. Money tap is powered by Ripple which uses the Ripple xCurrent solution, built on distributed ledger technology.

The report stated:

SBI Group announces that SEVEN additional Japanese banks (20 in the aggregate as of today) have agreed to invest in Money Tap, Co. Ltd, a brand-new company operating a domestic settlement system for digital payments that Run on Ripple.

MoneyTap claims that their application allows banks to settle cross-border payments in real-time, with end-to-end tracking. xCurrent can handle fiat and cryptocurrencies, including the Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency. MoneyTap does not use XRP as default currency to transfer money, but, the SBI Group has revealed that it will send dividends to its shareholders in Ripple’s token.

Also, a quarterly report of SBI stated that XRP integration was being ‘heavily considered’ with the MoneyTap application. MoneyTap began to offer international payments just a few months ago, so, the XRP currency certainly fits the scheme.

Previously MoneyTap had 25 banks live on it Including Chikubo, Ashiga, Towa, Shimane, Toho, Fukushima, SBI Sumishin Net Bank, Suruga Bank, and Resona Bank. But SBI’s recent report stated that13 more banks were to invest in the app and the four have already joined. The four new joiners are Awa Bank, Kita-Nippon Bank, Daisan Bank, and Seven Bank.

In Japan, Seven Bank is the largest ATM operator with more than 25,000 ATMs throughout the country. And nearly all the major banks in Japan are running on Ripple.

MoneyTap was unveiled in March 2019, as a part of SBI’s Fintech Platform initiative – a more extended push to adopt blockchain and distributed ledger technology for use in the Japanese financial sphere. SBI states that the participants on the platform account for around 80% of Japan’s domestic banking market. SBI administers its own Financial Services Agency (licensed exchange platform) in Japan.

The customer focused, MoneyTap app allows customers of the banking consortium to make instant (real-time) domestic money transfers where the only requirement is a bank account, phone number, or the QR code. The use of xCurrent from Ripple enables the app to offer lower rates for domestic transfers and also enables it to make use of ATMs.

The SBI Group, which has gone full crypto over the last two years, is very optimistic about their venture. In these years they have already launched a licensed exchange, adopted mining cryptos, invested in hardware wallet makers and, recently, started to manufacture mining processors and are hoping for more.