• Ripple is working with more than 50 Japanese banks to develop a completely new payment infrastructure powered by distributed ledger technology.
• Japan is one of the world’s most cash-loving nations, making digitization of payments a national agenda, and Ripple is positioning itself as a prime partner for this initiative.

Digital payments have become dominant globally, fuelled by the 2020 COVID pandemic where physical contact was highly discouraged. In the developed world, the share of digital payments can be as high as 95% in countries like China and Norway. However, Japan remains an outlier, with cash dominating payments in the Asian nation. Ripple is seeking to change this, and it has onboarded over 50 banks in its quest to introduce decentralised ledger technology (DLT)-based payment to the country.

According to one study, 90% of Japan prefers cash as its payment method, an eye-raising majority for a country with the world’s third-largest economy. Another study found that 52% of the country’s $17 trillion worth of financial assets was in cash, much higher than the US at 14% and the EU at 33%. Japanese nationals cite security and reliability as some of the key factors behind their love for cash, but researchers have also found it to be a cultural and political issue.

The Japanese government has been on a mission to drive users into digital payments, and in the past five years, it has made great strides. But concerns over security and reliability still linger, with many residents still concerned that their information could leak and cost them their life savings.

This makes blockchain payments one of the most ideal alternatives for Japan, and Ripple is taking full advantage.

Can Ripple Convert Japan From Cash?

Ripple has been active in Japan for years. In fact, the country has been one of Ripple’s most active markets, with partners like SBI pushing the adoption of XRP and the XRP Ledger to millions.

And now, the California company is going a step further, building a payments system in partnership with most of the country’s largest banks, according to a recent video shared online.

WOW!

61 Japanese banks have formed a consortium to build a domestic payment platform based on Ripple that also enables cross-border payments!

And every single one of these banks will be using #XRP by 2025! pic.twitter.com/zA3ltUcAhp

— (@_Crypto_Barbie) August 26, 2024

What we’re doing in Japan is we created a consortium of more than 50 banks to come together and develop a completely new payments infrastructure powered by Ripple’s distributed ledger technology which will replace the existing domestic payments system called Zenghin. It can also be applied cross-border payments as well.

CNF has previously reported on Ripple’s partnership with Japanese banks. In one report, the CEO of SBI revealed that major fund transfer companies in the country had begun using XRP solutions to ease costs and enhance efficiency.

“… the use of “xRapid” using XRP is becoming more widespread, and the number of companies participating in RippleNet is increasing significantly,” he stated.

XRP trades at $0.5588, gaining marginally over the past day.