Mizuho Bank just announced that they will be making the move to blockchain by creating their own cryptocurrency. The J-Coin Pay platform will be used by more than 60 institutions and reach 56 million users across Japan.
Banks are realizing they need to embrace blockchain. Mizuho CEO Tatsufumi Sakai told Nikkei that “the arrival of all these new entrants [into the digital payments space] is eroding the common-sense notion that payment services are provided by financial institutions.”
Mizuho is focused on adoption and ease of use. They plan on making it as easy as possible to send and receive funds. Users will be able to store J-Pay in wallets and spend their digital money by scanning QR codes while shopping.
The next step is to recruit retail shops across the country to accept J-Coin. Mizuho hopes to attract big companies in Japan such as FamilyMart, Bic Camera, and East Japan Railway. Working with these companies would give J-Coin Pay around 300,00 retail locations and 6.5 million users.
The Japanese retail giant Rakuten also just announced a mobile payments app which allows users to spend and store cryptocurrency. For the adoption of cryptocurrency what’s most important is utility and usage. Banks moving to integrate with blockchain is a sign that the public demand is growing. These institutions will have to adapt to remain useful and cryptocurrency seems to be the current path towards better service.
The move by Mizuho comes after the announcement by JP Morgan Chase that they would be issuing their own cryptocurrency. This came as a shock to many in the space following CEO Jamie Dimon’s negative remarks about Bitcoin. But other major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Fidelity have also begun to embrace cryptocurrency as well, and the wave of adoption could finally be coming.
