Ripple-Powered Payments Giant Reveals Plan to Reach 15 Million People and 1.5 Million Merchants

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Japanese financial giant SBI says it’s bringing the Ripple-powered payments app MoneyTap to millions of users by partnering with the mobile payments company PayPay.

MoneyTap launched at the beginning of October. The Bangalore-based startup is a subsidiary of banking giant and Ripple partner SBI Holdings. According to the announcement, the partnership will build on the money transfer app utilizing Ripple’s distributed ledger technology to deliver next-generation financial infrastructure.

Says SBI,

“In this business alliance, when the user charges the PayPay balance from the bank account, it does not go through the existing infrastructure such as CAFIS by going through the MoneyTap infrastructure provided by MoneyTap.

You can charge directly from your bank account. This will reduce the burden of connection with individual financial institutions at PayPay, and will enable connection with operators at a lower cost than existing infrastructure at financial institutions.”

PayPay launched last year when Indian mobile payments giant Paytm formed a joint venture with Yahoo Japan and SoftBank.

Paypay is reportedly used by more than 15 million customers in Japan and supported by more than 1.5 million local merchant partners and stores. It has also settled more than 170 million transactions in the country, according to SBI Holdings.

MoneyTap app utilizes QR codes or phone numbers to send and receive payments, and is currently available on both iOS and Android.

Although SBI says it’s working to get more than 60 Japanese banks on board, the app is currently open to members of two domestic financial institutions: SBI Sumishin Net Bank and Suruga Bank.