Japan's largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (MTU) plans to launch its own cryptocurrency until March 2018 and will have a parity ratio with Japan's national currency, the yen, writes Investopedia.
In the first instance, it will only be used by bank employees and inter-branch transactions. It can be used for standard transactions, such as shopping or money transfer between people, at much lower costs compared to using credit cards.
Users will need to create their wallets in order to use the currency, and MUFG will be processed by internal transactions. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial first tested the use of the coin in 2016, collaborating last year with the Coinbase managed GDAX exchange.
Banks, who were skeptical at first about cryptocurrencies, are now increasingly moving towards the creation of their own currency or the adoption of technology in some transactions. For example, 6 banks (including MUFG) have joined UBS Bank's Utility Settlement Coin (USC) consortium last year. The MUFG movement is an expected development as a result of the Japanese government's position of introducing cryptocurrencies into widespread use. According to last year's report, Mizuho Financial Group is leading a consortium of banks that aims to develop a coin known as J-coin, and the large-scale launching deadline would be the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Japanese investors and exchanges played a very important role in leaping prices for cryptocurrencies. Together with South Korea, Japan holds the largest trading volume of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bank consortium from the two countries also collaborate in testing money transfers through Ripple's blockchain system.
My belief is that the cryptocurrencies will rule the world and we'll see an incremental drop of the traditional money. Now, the banks are still holding the power and they want to keep it so after with more and more adoption of the cryptocurrencies. They will hold a part of it, but nevertheless the majority will be self managed by the people. But, we need to see this as a strengthening of the cryptos worldwide and the trust in what blockchain offers for enabling easy and cheap transactions. Good news for everyone involved in the crypto world in my opinion.