Japanese e-commerce giant Rakueleven has teamed up with JR East, Japan’s largest railway company, to promote cashless payments, according to Cointelegraph.
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This collaboration will enable commuters to charge and use their rechargeable Smart Ride card (JR East’s “Suica”) through the Rakuten Payment mobile app.
The service is expected to be operational by 2020. This will be used by commuters to 5,000 railway stations and about 50,000 buses, in addition to about 600,000 shops across Japan, the cashless service will be released and will be expanded to other businesses in the future.
It is reported that two companies will seek future joint ventures to further promote cashless payment networks.
Cashless payments are becoming more and more popular among businesses around the world. Even countries are trying to encourage that. Northern Macedonia recently banned cash transactions involving more than 500 euros to curb tax evasion and the “shadow economy.”
E-commerce company Rakuten has also played a key role in encouraging the development of the technology by updating its payment application to make it useful for cryptocurrency payments.
Rakuten bought everyone ‘ t Bitcoin, an encryption technology exchange in the United States, for 2.4 million of dollars in August 2018. In January of this year, Rakuten announced amendments to the restructuring of the company, setting up a new payment subsidiary, which includes a new cryptographic currency business.
Rakuten now plans to launch an upcoming cryptographic currency exchange product, Rakuten Wallet, in June this year. The product was approved for regulatory approval by the Japan Financial Agency (FSA) in March.
Also in March this year, the Japan Financial Department approved the application of DeCurret, a Japanese cryptographic exchange. DeCurret has also introduced a new cryptographic money payment system that will allow JR East’s Suica payment card to recharge cryptocurrencies.