The Japanese banking consortium will launch a mobile instant domestic payments application, "MoneyTap", using the Ripple's technology in the fall of 2018, Ripple's blog reported yesterday, March 6.

The consortium of 61 banks, led by SBI Ripple Asia, is representative of more than 80 percent of all banking assets in Japan, according to Ripple. Takashi Okita, CEO of SBI Ripple Asia, said in Ripple's blog:

"With the confidence, reliability and reach of the banking consortium, we can eliminate the frictions of payments and create a

Three of the consortium banks, SBI Net Sumishin Bank, Suruga Bank and Resona Bank, will start using the application this fall, while the rest of the banks will join gradually MoneyTap will allow users to make purchases 24 hours a day, every day of the week.

Ripple has long been focused on building relationships with banks to utilize his In February, Ripple announced two new financial services partnerships, one with the Saudi Monetary Authority for the use of its cross-border payment technology for the country's banks and another with with Western Union, which tests the settlement system based on the Ripple Blockchain.

This month, a The Korean bank also announced that it planned to use Ripple's cross-border payment technology for remittances, as a result of Japan-based Blockchain remittance test involving Ripple and SBI Group.