Japan-based financial services company, SBI Ripple Asia recently confirmed the official launch of MoneyTap mobile application. The announcement stated that the mobile app is powered by Ripple’s technology and is aimed to allow users to make payments instantly at any hour and day of the week.
CEO of SBI Ripple Asia, Takashi Okita posted a Tweet, on September 12, which featured the link to new website for the app. The accompanied message of the Tweet sated: “quietly, the teaser site of Moneytap was released. How about the image of the logo and the screen?”
Official information on Moneytap website also confirms that the application is free to download and use, in addition to being an easy bank transfer application.
It was also reported that the first to go live on the recently released app will be the three members of the Japan banking consortium. This will reportedly take place in autumn of this year, after which the rest of the members of consortium will be rolled out. The three member banks were announced to be SBI Net Sumishin Bank, Resona Bank and Suruga Bank.
Notably the consortium is headed by the SBI Ripple Asia alliance which covers over 80% of all the banking assets in Japan.
Earlier announcements about the new app also claimed that it “allows payments to be made to bank accounts, phone numbers or a QR code. The app also offers savings on bank fees that are usually levied on ATM and banking fees”.
The official message by Okita at the original launch of the product also stated: “together with the trust, reliability and reach of the bank consortium, we can remove friction from payments and create a faster, safer, and more efficient domestic payments experience for our customers”.
SBI Ripple is reported to be the second company to launch an app which is based on Ripple’s technology aiming at settling payments. The first one was Banco Santander which had earlier released an app called OnePay FX.
