Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has partnered with Japan's biggest railway firm, the East Japan Railway Company, to promote cashless payments.
The news was reported by Cointelegraph Japan on June 5.
The partnership will enable commuters to charge and use their rechargeable smart fare card - JR East's "Suica" - via the Rakuten Pay mobile app.
As Cointelegraph Japan notes, the integrated service will bring cashless transport payments via the mobile app to commuters at 5,000 train stations and approximately 50,000 buses, in addition to around 600,000 stores across Japan.
The two firms will reportedly look to future joint ventures to further promote cashless payments networks, the press release claims.
As Cointelegraph has previously reported, an update to the popular Rakuten payments app that could potentially facilitate support for cryptocurrency payments was revealed in the company's 2018 earnings release, published this February.
Rakuten had acquired domestic crypto exchange Everybody's Bitcoin in August 2018 in a $2.4 million deal.
This January, Rakuten announced a revision to its corporate restructure, setting up a new payments subsidiary that includes its new cryptocurrency business.
Rakuten now plans to launch a forthcoming crypto exchange - dubbed Rakuten Wallet - this June, having sealed regulatory approval from Japan's Financial Services Agency in March.
The FSA greenlighted Japanese crypto exchange DeCurret, which in parallel unveiled a new crypto payment system that will enable JR East's Suica payment card to be topped up with cryptocurrency.
Rakuten Partners With Japan's Biggest Railway Firm to Promote Cashless Payments
Published on Jun 5, 2019
by Cointele | Published on Coinage
Coinage
Recent News
View All
Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin's Run, Uniswap's Hemorrhaging Value, Anchorage's Banking Bid
Bitcoin is nearing all-time highs in price and market cap last set three years ago.
Japan's megabanks to lead experiment with digital yen
We have, in order, Cheese Bank with a $3.3 million theft, Akropolis with its $2 million loss, Value DeFi with a whopping $6 million exploit and finally Origin Protocol's loss of $7 million.
Number of new Bitcoin addresses spikes amid growing FOMO
Japan's three largest banks, as part of a group of 30 private sector actors, are set to collaborate on an experiment with a digital yen.
Not just Wall Street: Quant trader explains why Bitcoin price is going up
Sam Trabucco, a quantitative trader at Alameda Research, believes four general factors are pushing up the price of Bitcoin.