SBI Holdings and its subsidiary SBI Ripple Asia have decided to launch a consortium. SBI Ripple Asia is a provider in Asia of next-generation settlement platforms based on distributed financial technology. The consortium will be called the Consortium for Considering Using Blockchain Technology to Centrally Provide Domestic and Foreign Exchange Services (the “Consortium”). Inaugural members will comprise, among others, the Bank of Yokohama and SBI Sumishin Net Bank
Blockchain technology, representing innovative and key technology in FinTech, offers the potential for the user to build a system of higher flexibility and efficiency while improving the stability of financial institution systems.
The Bank of Yokohama
SBI Sumishin Net Bank
While the Bank of Yokohama and SBI Sumishin Net Bank have been implementing various FinTech initiatives at an accelerated pace, the Consortium will begin to consider new types of payment and settlement services that utilize blockchain technology, starting from October 2016. This is designed to address:
1) a trend of 24-hour and real-time settlement resulting from innovative changes occurring in recent years to information and communications technology (ICT), coupled with changing customer behaviors and way of living in society;
2) increasingly diverse needs for remittance concerning small-value settlements;
3) a borderless trend caused by cross-border e-commerce and Japanese companies’ expansion into Asian countries.
SBI Ripple Asia, the provider of distributed financial technology-based next-generation settlement platforms in Asia, will serve as the secretariat of the Consortium, which by March 2017 will create a settlement platform for centrally providing both foreign and domestic exchange services using Ripple.
The Consortium’s member financial institutions will continue to discuss, both from technical and operational perspectives, how to utilize Ripple and talk about the duties that domestic and foreign exchange services should fulfill.
Starting from late August 2016, financial institutions will be solicited to become members of the Consortium, and at its inception in October of the same year, the inaugural members will likely consist of 15 banks or so with about 30 banks expected to be on the membership list in March 2017.
