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Less than a year ago, SBI Ripple Asia announced the creation of a Japanese consortium of banks who will use Ripple’s technology for payments and settlement. The set of banks set out to be the first in Japan to conquer the slow and costly pain points associated with sending payments using current rails.

A few short months later, the consortium grew to 47 banks that successfully completed a pilot implementation of Ripple to enable real-time money transfers both domestically and internationally – with the goal of going live by year end.

Today, we are happy to announce that the Japan bank consortium continues to drive interest among the banking community in Japan, bringing the total number of members to 61, representing over 80% of total banking assets in Japan.

All three of Japan’s largest banks have now joined the Japan bank consortium using Ripple, including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), MUFG and Mizuho. We also welcome Japan Post Bank to the roster of the top banks by assets using Ripple for payments in Japan.

“We commend these banks in Japan for taking a giant step forward on behalf of their customers. This is a great example of a regional banks converging into a global real-time payments network for the greater good,” said Marcus Treacher, global head of strategic accounts at Ripple.

Stay on the lookout for a common mobile application for payments that will unite all the banks’ customers both domestically and globally – set to launch later this year.

The consortium intends to expand further and non-Japanese banks based in Japan interested in joining can contact the consortium. Banks outside of Japan are also welcome to contact Ripple to be connected.