In the local financial newspaper of 21st Day of February 2019, Nikkei Asian Review reports that the financial group of Japanese banking Giant Mizuho will launch its stablecoin for payment and remittance services on 1st Day of March 2019.
Mizuho Financial Group is a public banking company which holds the company has total assets of $1.8 trillion above.
This stablecoin will be launched with the partnership of 60 peer financial institutions. It is reported that these financial institutions together have 56 million user accounts. “J-coin” Is the new currency which is being launched or introduced in the industry of digital currency and will be directly linked to the existing bank accounts with digital wallets.
The currency will be managed by a mobile App which will dubb J-Coin Pay, using QR codes at checkout to complete retail payments.
According to the reports, the currency will be a digital currency and a stablecoin fixed at a price of 1 yen per unit. The transfer of J-Coins wallets and bank accounts will be free of charge.
Japan is already served by payment innovators such as e-commerce giant Rakuten and chat app provider Line, which has itself launched its own cryptocurrency and in-house blockchain. J-Coin wallets user will not be required to go through the credit check. These services will also be provided to the people of below 18 years of age. J-Coin wallets will also serve a more flexible range of payments and remittance services than traditional bank accounts — with options for colleagues to split bills or for family members to transfer pocket money.
Even after the megabank’s broad perspective user base and 60-member alliance, its target user outreach still falls short of Line’s existing 79 million Japanese users. Line Pay, moreover, is already reportedly supported at 1.3 million stores.
Mizuho is thus reportedly further pursuing a partnership strategy with Alibaba’s Alipay to help J-Coin Pay gain traction with stores. It also plans to charge merchants lower transaction fees than credit card services, which typically range between 2 to 5 percent.
