March 20,According to Nikkei News, the Japanese financial industry giant SBI Group has established a subsidiary company responsible for processing personal remittances using blockchain technology and other services, and provides the personal remittance application Money Tap participated by Sumishin SBI Internet Banking and others.
It is reported that Money Tap was originally operated by SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture subsidiary of SBI Group and Ripple, but SBI has decided to legalize it to facilitate early investment. SBI Group is considering setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary first, and then negotiating capital contributions with a number of banks to complete the integration by the end of this month. By incorporation, it will be easier for SBI to obtain the financial support required by Money Tap.
In fact, according to the investment observation report obtained by blockchain investment bank NKB Group from CB Insights, SBI Group has become the largest investor in the field of blockchain technology.
In April 2018, Russian commercial bank SBI Bank LLC, a subsidiary of SBI, joined the blockchain alliance R3 to advance R3s Corda distributed ledger (DLT) platform and promote the adoption of blockchain technology across industries. In the same month, Templum, a New York-based cryptocurrency trading platform, announced that it had completed a $10 million financing with the support of the venture capital arm of Japanese financial giant SBI Group.
In May 2018, SBI invested in Taiwanese blockchain startup OwlTing, which is planning a public offering next year. SBI has previously postponed the launch of the cryptocurrency trading platform twice, and at this time also announced that it will be launched in summer 2018.
In August 2018, SBI established a joint venture with Anke Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ping An Insurance Company of China, and Shanghai OneConnect Financial Technology, a subsidiary of Ping An Group. Investment ratio: SBI 60%, Ping An Group 40%. Through this joint venture, SBI Holdings Group will promote OneConnects financial technology series services to Japanese domestic financial institutions, and also hopes to contribute to the entry of Japanese financial machine companies into the Chinese market through cooperation with Ping An Group.
SBI becomes the first banking institution to directly launch a cryptocurrency exchange. The platform VCTRADE serves Japanese retail investors. Previously, SBI established a close partnership with U.S. blockchain startup Ripple and participated in the financing of several large cryptocurrency trading platforms, including Tokyo-based bitFlyer and San Francisco-based Kraken.
SBI has reportedly been pouring money into the cryptocurrency industry over the past few years. Launched its own exchange after investing in several exchanges In February 2016, Kraken, a global bitcoin exchange, announced that it had received millions of dollars in investment from SBI. Not long after, in April, SBI once again led the 3 billion yen (approximately US$27 million) Series C financing of Bitflyer, a large Japanese cryptocurrency exchange.
In addition, SBI also participated in the US$100 million financing of social investment network platform eToro, which plans to launch an international cryptocurrency exchange and mobile wallet in the United States. In September 2016, Ripple, a blockchain start-up company, announced the completion of a $55 million Series B round of financing, with SBI as the leading investor.
In fact, when Ripple began to deploy the Asian market in early 2016, the partner it chose was SBI. The two parties reached a cooperation agreement at that time to establish a joint venture, SBI Ripple Asia. As part of the cooperation agreement, Ripple will also discuss with SBI how to list Ripple (XRP) on SBIs various online securities platforms.
