Japan’s GMO Internet To Use Blockchain In New Online Banking Business
July 17, 2018 11:22 pm
GMO, a top Japanese internet services provider, launched a new internet banking business leveraging blockchain as a central part of its technological arsenal, CoinTelegraph reported Tuesday.
The project, the report said, has reportedly been in the works for nearly two years via the ‘GMO Aozora Net Bank,’ in which GMO Internet, GMO Financial Holdings and Aozora Bank are joint investors.
Tuesday’s announcement explained blockchain will be featured as a key component of the new venture, alongside other cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), CoinTelegraph reported.
GMO believes the new venture has “a high potential for increasing corporate value in the future,” the report said.
The new banking strategy will be open to GMO’s corporate and retail clients, according to Finance Feeds, tailoring core banking services such as deposits and exchange for e-commerce businesses, as well as offering products developed with partner securities firms, CoinTelegraph reported.
In addition, GMO, headquartered in Tokyo declared ¥43.705 billion (around $387.5 million) in net sales in the first quarter of 2018, up 17.5 percent from a year before, the report said.
GMO’s decision to base its new internet banking venture in blockchain technology is in keeping with its significant prior investments in the crypto and blockchain space, CoinTelegraph reported.
The company already runs its own GMO Coin crypto exchange, a major mining operation and has even embraced paying a portion of its staff payslips in Bitcoin (BTC), the report said.
This March, GMO Coin pledged to improve its data security after local regulators identified shortcomings during a cross-industry probe in the aftermath of the high-profile $530 million hack of Japanese exchange Coincheck in January, the report said.
– WN.com, Jack Durschlag
