Summary:
- SBI Holdings has invested an undisclosed amount in the New York-based startup of Digital Asset.
- The two companies will establish a joint venture in Japan under equal ownership, operating within the country and the East Asian Markets.
- SBI Holdings and Digital Asset will collaborate to drive a concept of programmable money into the Japanese market through a ‘Smart Yen’ program.
Ripple’s long-term partner of SBI Holdings has announced a strategic investment in the New York-based startup of Digital Asset for an undisclosed amount.
According to the official announcement by the team at SBI Holdings, the two companies have agreed to establish a joint venture in Japan under equal ownership to operate within the country and the East Asian Markets.
SBI and Digital Asset to Collaborate on the ‘Smart Yen’ Program
A similar announcement by the team at Digital Asset further explains that the company will collaborate with SBI to ‘to drive Digital Asset’s concept for programmable money into the Japanese market through a newly created ‘smart yen’ program, which will address key retail banking challenges around customer growth and retention.’
The ‘Smart Yen’ program will utilize Digital Asset’s Daml: a platform for building and running sophisticated multi-party applications. Daml improves on smart contract and distributed ledger technology through additional features such as privacy, reliability, interoperability, and scalability. The company is also actively working with leading financial institutions such as the Australian Securities Exchange, Deutsche Börse, Hong Kong Exchanges, and Goldman Sachs, among others.
SBI Holdings’ President and Representative Director, Yoshitaka Kitao, further pointed out the revolutionary potential of using Daml for the ‘Smart Yen’ program. He said:
Digital Asset has excellent technology and business concepts. A new cash concept “Smart Yen” (tentative name) will make it possible to build a revolutionary customer-oriented cash system by directly linking anoptimized for each individual customer loyalty program to deposits, and fully automating the process of providing loyalty through smart contracts.
We expect to further accelerate the SBI Group’s digital-asset related businesses and digital transformation by actively introducing Digital Asset’s technology.
Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Asset, Yuval Rooz, echoed Mr. Kitao’s statements and highlighted that SBI has been a trendsetter in fintech innovation over the years, and their collaboration will ‘bring more cutting-edge technology solutions to the Japanese market.’