Fintech giant Ripple has completed an investment in Japanese payments company MoneyTap. The amount of this funding remained undisclosed. MoneyTap is a blockchain-based money transfer app that was launched by a joint venture between Ripple and SBI Holdings in 2018.
Most of MoneyTap’s payments are peer-to-peer transfers, remittances, and corporate payments. These services are powered by RippleNet, Ripple’s global financial settlements network. RippleNet directly connects both parties – banks – in these transfers by sharing information using DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology).
Moreover, services like MoneyTap reduce the transaction costs for banks in remittance payments. SBI Holdings mentioned this problem, saying “The high interbank fees in Japan have not been corrected for more than 40 years, and it is a special situation internationally”.
MoneyTap also has high hopes in the country; it envisions to create an entire financial ecosystem. Prospective structures for an ATM software created by MoneyTap are already underway, and more financial machinery is probably underway.
MoneyTap and SBI Holdings stated that they are looking forward to a partnership with Ripple. Towards this end, they, and will be developing services like small amount collection service and corporate payment function, a community currency, an overseas remittance service, inbound, and outbound remittance services. The consortium will also aim at creating a supply chain finance function, seeking to increase customer satisfaction through greater convenience.
Ripple’s historic ties to MoneyTap
When it was launched in 2018, MoneyTap was jointly owned by SBI Holdings and Ripple. This joint venture was then dubbed SBI Ripple Asia and was initially backed by only three banks.
A year after its launch, MoneyTap was declared to be an independent business and a 100% subsidiary of SBI Holdings. It still continued to use RippleNet all this time.
