Resona, a Japan-based Bank, announced on Thursday that it will cancel its partnership with the Ripple-powered remittance payments app, Money Tap.
Ripple Labs, an American technology company, has been working hard to improve global crypto adoption. It has formed partnerships with several banking and non-banking financial institutions to make worldwide crypto adoption a reality. Its main focus is to be first when it comes to cryptocurrency based payments.
The Asian continent has been a very important market for Ripple. The company has had the opportunity to enter several partnership deals with major banks in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, etc…
Ripple’s Money Tap App
The Money Tap app is a worldwide remittance application launched in Oct 2018 by SBI Ripple Asia. The platform was setup to facilitate transfers between banks, it also makes it possible for users to transfer funds in real time and at no cost. The application uses simple smartphone features such as fingerprint scanner for user authentication and to ensure security. This makes it possible for users to transfer funds without the receiver’s account number.
Resona Bank, the fifth largest in Japan, joined the platform immediately after it was launched in 2018 and announced on Thursday that it would be leaving the platform on the 13th of May.
Up till the time of writing this report, Resona has not given any reason for the separation, as they only announced the date the bank will be ending its partnership with Ripple.
The Separation Could Be Because Of Resona’s Recently Launched App
It could, however, be as a result of the bank’s newly launched Wallet App. The Resona Wallet App was launched in February this year with functions very similar to that of the Money Tap.
Ripple’s xCurrent platform received investments from 13 banks in March 2019, but none of them has actually put the technology to use yet.
This separation of Resona seems like a big loss to Ripple but the company has several other options that will help cushion the effect of this devastating blow.