Nothing less than 34 banks have invested in SBI Ripple Asia-developed cheap remittance solution, Money Tap.

The project came through an Asia consortium spearheaded by SBI Holdings and Ripple Inc. Labs.

The banks include Ashikaga Bank, Awa Bank, EHIME BANK, Kita-Nippon Bank, KiraboshiBank, Gunma Bank, KeiyoBank, San-in Godo Bank, SHIGA BANK, Shimane Bank, Shimizu Bank, Shinsei Bank, SBI SumishinNet Bank, and some others.

Lately, three more banks joined the initiative, they include Michinoku Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Yamaguchi Financial Group, the owner of Yamaguchi Bank, Momiji Bank, and Kitakyushu Bank.

For now, SBI Holdings, which oversees everything about MoneyTap says in a report that I will consider accepting investment from the U.S.-based Ripple after it has completed the acceptance of investments from domestic financial institutions.

The move, according to SBI, is to strengthen technical cooperation, while also promoting initiatives that are related to international remittances.

To be able to achieve the anti-money laundering and know-your-customer strategies among other things for MoneyTap, the firm is leveraging the services of an Israel-based firm, Openlegacy to achieve API Connections easily with minimal customization.

In 2020, some features of the Ripple-based MoneyTap are expected to be launched. The application is expected to finally go live in 2020, after it had been tested in the past with zero-fee transactions.

Once the MoneyTap smartphone app is launched, it will work real time without any delay.

The app aims to reduce the time and cost of transactions for its customers in Japan.

The app will have room for a small amount of fund transfer and international money transfer services.

Also, it is going to have room for salary prepayment service and a space for QR code payment services.

SBI, which is spearheading this initiative, announced few days back it would be paying its shareholders in XRP. This is not just a progress for SBI, it has the potential of propelling the spread of XRP token in Japan and beyond.