Ripple Partners with Japanese Banks to Launch App for Domestic Payments

Ripple is working with a consortium of Japanese banks to launch ‘MoneyTap’ – a smartphone application that will power instant domestic payments via a bank account, phone number, or QR code for their customers.

The first banks to go live with the new app will be SBI Net Sumishin Bank, Suruga Bank and Resona Bank, in autumn of 2018. This will be followed by the adoption of the remaining 58 banks in the SBI Ripple Asia-led consortium. The potential of this app is huge, because the consortium who developed it, is covering more than 80% of all banking assets in Japan.

MoneyTap will be the first mobile app developed and used by multiple banks in Japan. The new service will allow the settlement of payment flows over the RippleNet blockchain network instantly, dramatically decreasing the costs associated with existing banking and ATM fees that are currently applied to domestic money transfers in Japan.

It will also introduce instant round-the-clock settlement of money transfers in a country where transactions are currently processed in a limited window on weekends and between 8.30am and 3.30pm daily.

“We are proud to leverage Ripple’s blockchain technology through our new mobile app, MoneyTap, to improve the payments infrastructure in Japan,” says Takashi Okita, CEO of SBI Ripple Asia. “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.”

“The release of the MoneyTap mobile app shows Ripple’s continued commitment to provide its partners across Asia and the world with blockchain-powered solutions that dramatically improve the customer payments journey,” said Emi Yoshikawa, director of joint venture partnerships at Ripple.

“We’re proud to provide this production-ready technology that not only improves the international payments experience, but also have applications for domestic payments infrastructure.”