30th January 2019 – Financial services group SBI Holdings is setting up a joint venture with R3 to push the distributed ledger technology specialist’s Corda platform in Japan.
SBI, which is R3’s largest outside shareholder, will take a 60% stake in the new SBI R3 Japan venture, which will launch with around $4.5 million in capital.
The unit will support licensing and implementation of the Corda platform and promote collaboration with overseas offices of R3 and other Corda partners. The partners also plan to move beyond Japan to other East Asian countries.
SBI has a similar joint venture in place with another major blockchain player, Ripple. Late last year the pair worked with a consortium of Japanese banks to launch a DLT-based mobile payments app.
R3 and Ripple have had an antagonistic relationship but have been playing nice since settling a legal dispute last year over technology contracts and joint venture agreements.
