SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture between Japanese banking giant and Ripple Labs, has received the green light from Japanese authorities to ahead with their blockchain based payments application ‘MoneyTap’. On Wednesday, the company announced that they’re now officially registered with the Kantou bureau of Japan’s Ministry of Finance as a licensed agent for handling electronic payments. SBI Ripple Asia has been in the works since 2017 when SBI and Ripple began planning to launch Ripple based products including the MoneyTap application.
In may, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) announced that companies trying to conduct electronic fund transfer via applications must first register with the local finance bureau, starting from June 1st.
According to the statement made last month by SBI CEO, Takashi Okita, the smartphone application is now very close to a public launch for both iOS and Android. “SBI Ripple Asia is planning to register the electronic settlement and other settlement enterprises in order to properly implement electronic payments and other settlement aspects related to MoneyTap in the future.” the statement read.
The application is expected to go live by end of the year. It will allow easy peer-to-peer fund transfers for retail users over a decentralized network. The Japan Bank Consortium (JBC), an organization having 61 local banks as its members, will be the main client. The MoneyTap application will first be launched in Japan and tested by 3 members of JBC – Sumishin Bank, Suruga Bank, and Resona Bank.
This announcement follows the previous announcement made by SBI about plans to launch S-Coin, a cryptocurrency token for mobile retail payments.
