Mitsubishi Says Japan’s Biggest Bank Will Join UK Financial Giant to Test Ripple (XRP) for Cross-Border Payments

MUFG Bank, the largest bank in Japan, will work with a UK financial powerhouse to see how effective Ripple’s distributed ledger is at moving money across borders, according to MUFG Bank’s parent company, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

The test will include Tokyo-based MUFG Bank, Thailand-based Bank of Ayudhya PCL, which is a subsidiary of MUFG, and Standard Chartered, one of the largest banks in the UK.

The banks will transfer money between Thailand and Singapore, and will be the first time a Japanese company has used RippleNet to power cross-border payments.

RippleNet is a network of banks, payment providers and digital assets that use Ripple’s distributed ledger to process payments, including the ability to leverage XRP to lower liquidity costs and improve speed.

Ripple recently announced the results of a similar pilot program, saying RippleNet used XRP to save financial institutions 40-70% of the typical cost, and lowered the transaction time from two to three days to “just over two minutes.”

In addition, Ripple demonstrated the role XRP can play in speeding up these types of transfers at the opening day of the Consensus 2018 conference in New York.