CEO of the SBI Group, Yoshitaka Kitao, has taken to Twitter to share the news of the company's subsidiary, SBI Remit, teaming up with Daiko Bank in Japan to conduct instant payments based on RippleNet.
Financial giant SBI is also a major partner of Ripple in Japan.
Remittances in Japan become more important than before
In his tweet, Yoshitaka Kitao shared a news article on the SBI Group website. The news states that SBI has signed a partnership agreement with Daiko Bank, also referred to as Hikari Bank, regarding the bank supporting international remittances conducted by SBI Remit.
The article explains the prerequisites of this partnership, saying that, every year, the amount of foreign workers in Japan grows. This is due to the fact that the local working population in Japan is gradually decreasing and the population overall is growing older, while birth rates are falling as well.
The number of foreign workers in Japan now constitutes around 60 percent of the workforce, and this amount is increasing. Foreigners send money back home to their families on a regular basis.
They are crucial to the Japanese economy, the article emphasizes. Besides, the number of Japanese companies expanding to foreign markets is also rising quickly, along with the amount of Japanese people abroad. At the moment, they total 1.41 million.
The company expects a rise in demand for cross-border payments soon due to the recent lockdowns caused by the pandemic that originated in China and by the accelerated transfer of the global economy into a digital format.
Payment network built by Ripple and expanded by MoneyGram
SBI Remit emphasized that it uses a network built by Ripple and then substantially expanded by its major partner, MoneyGram, which has 350,000 branches in 220 countries and is also connected with foreign financial institutions and banks.
SBI Remit primarily conducts remittances between Japan and Thailand.
SBI launches crypto lending service
As reported by U.Today last week, SBI, Ripple's major partner in Japan, had debuted a crypto lending service that works with such cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple's XRP.
The service operates on the company's digital exchange, SBI VC Trade.
Arman Shirinyan
Alex Dovbnya
