This article was published on October 4, 2018

Japan Bank Consortium launches its Ripple-powered payment app

Unfortunately, it won't process cryptocurrency payments


Japan Bank Consortium launches its Ripple-powered payment app

Japan has finally given the green light to the Japan Bank Consortium to launch its Ripple-powered payments app for Android and iOS.

The news comes straight from Ripple themselves. “The Japan Bank Consortium launched MoneyTap today, a Ripple-powered payments app to offer real time settlement for domestic payments in Japan,” the company wrote on Twitter.

But before you scream out “mass adoption” in triumph, it is worth pointing out that the app won’t process cryptocurrency-based payments. Instead, it will merely utilize Ripple’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) to facilitate payments between banks and institutions.

For the record, Money Tap is developed by SBI Ripple Asia – a joint effort between Japanese financial giant SBI and Ripple.

The payment app was first announced in early September. A few weeks later, SBI confirmed the Japanese Ministry of Finance has approved Money Tap for launch. Indeed, Japan recently introduced a legal requirement that all businesses handling electronic payments be registered with local finance bureaus.

Japanese netizens can head to the official Money Tap site to learn more about the app. To download the app, they can head to Google’s Play Store here or to Apple’s App Store here.

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