Money Tap

Money Tap Co., Ltd. operates a mobile application for payments and remittances in Japan, leveraging blockchain technology to enable instant, 24/7 domestic money transfers. The service was developed by SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture between financial services conglomerate SBI Holdings and Ripple, and was officially launched in October 2018. The platform aims to modernize Japan's traditional banking infrastructure, which typically restricts transfers to standard banking hours, by offering a faster, more efficient, and lower-cost alternative. Users can initiate transfers using a recipient's mobile phone number or a QR code, in addition to a traditional bank account number, enhancing convenience for peer-to-peer transactions.

The company was formally incorporated as a subsidiary of SBI Holdings in March 2019 and is led by CEO Mirei Kimura. Money Tap operates through a consortium model, partnering with a wide network of Japanese banks to integrate its service. This consortium, which includes major and regional banks like SBI Sumishin Net Bank, Suruga Bank, and Resona Bank, accounts for a significant portion of Japan's banking assets. In September 2022, MoneyTap merged with SBI Remit, the remittance arm of SBI Holdings, to create a next-generation financial infrastructure with high functionality at a low cost. The business model is designed to reduce the high interbank fees common in Japan and also provides its infrastructure for other payment services like PayPay, Kyash, and Merpay to facilitate wallet-charging from bank accounts.

Keywords: mobile payments, remittance app, blockchain finance, Ripple, SBI Holdings, Japanese fintech, peer-to-peer payments, P2P transfer, QR code payments, financial infrastructure, domestic money transfer, banking consortium, xCurrent, instant settlement, low-cost transfers