Fujitsu has teamed up with three major Japanese banks to trial a peer-to-peer digital money transfer system at the beginning of next year. Mizuho Financial Group, Mitsubishi Financial Group, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, have all signed on.
At the moment, details on the platform are scant beyond Fujitsu’s announcement that it will be based on a blockchain ledger, and will operate via a smartphone app. But given Fujitsu’s longstanding interest in biometrics, as well as that of Sumitomo Mitsui, which developed a multimodal authentication app earlier this year, it seems fair to speculate that such technology is likely to be used to verify transactions on the service.
The companies have also revealed some details on the planned trial, which will get underway in January and run until March. The trial will focus on ensuring that users’ transfers on the app reflect the appropriate changes in their linked bank accounts, with an emphasis on clearing and settlement; and that it offers a “user-friendly authentication user experience”, according to a statement announcing the collaboration — also pointing to the probable use of biometric user verification.
News of the effort arrives as Apple prepares to launch a P2P payments service for users of its phones and laptops, suggesting that this is an area of growing interest in the tech sector.
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