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India’s SBI blocks crypto users from receiving funds via its UPI platform

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Just when financial institutions in India were reportedly softening their stance on crypto, a prominent bank in the country has stopped payments to crypto exchanges through UPI.

According to reports, the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India [SBI] has stopped payments to cryptocurrency exchanges using its UPI option. This news comes months after several banks in the country warned their users from sending money to these exchanges.

UPI, which is short for ‘Unified Payment Interface,’ enables account holders of a bank to send and receive money from their phones without the need for divulging bank account details or even net banking user ID and password. It is one of the most used ways to make payments in the country.

It is important to note that, National Payments Corporation of India [NPC], the umbrella organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in the country that developed the instant payment system, have said that they are not banning crypto despite being a specialized division of Reserve Bank of India [RBI].

However, financial institutions such as the State Bank of India have their own decision-making abilities. With its latest move of blocking crypto users from receiving funds via its UPI platform, the payment avenues in the country appear to be shrinking at an alarming rate.

India’s WazirX affected by the latest move

Binance-acquired WazirX, which happens to be a popular crypto venue in the country, was also affected by the decision. Many users on the platform resorted to using one of the e-wallet services to transact. Its CEO Nischal Shetty said that they were trying to have a talk with the bank and put relevant points forward. He also added,

“WazirX follows KYC [know your customer] norms and AML [anti-money laundering] policies. Being the largest crypto exchange in India, millions of Indians are currently affected due to this move by SBI. We look forward to a positive resolution soon”

The lack of regulatory clarity in the country has been a major hindrance to crypto adoption. The latest decision by the bank will likely trigger other banks to follow suit. An official verdict on cryptocurrency exchanges in the country is yet to see the light of the day. Jayant Singh, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, had recently stated that the government would take a “distinctive approach” to regulate the crypto ecosystem in India.

XRP Lending Enabled On SBI With 0.1% Annual Interest Rate

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XRP has been under the crypto spotlight, but for all the bad reasons. The asset’s squabble with the SEC along with its steep fall had got several steering away from the troubled asset. However, the last couple of days seemed to be going on in the favor of the altcoin. The coin was seen surging over the last couple of days. This surge could have been triggered by SBI Group’s latest announcement.

In a recent announcement, SBI Group, a financial services platform based in Japan revealed that XRP was the latest addition to its lending service. The financial services firm intends to deliver this setting to its users through SBI VC Trade. Elaborating on the same the platform said,

“Outline of “VCTRADE LENDING” service for lending crypto assets “VCTRADE LENDING” is a service that allows customers to rent crypto assets owned by customers to the Company and receive usage fees according to the quantity and period of crypto assets.”

The annual interest rate per annum would sum up to 0.1% including tax. The lending period for the asset would reportedly be 84 days with the minimum lending quantity at 1,000 XRP while the maximum was noted at 100,000 XRP.

While several prominent exchanges withdrew support for the altcoin, the Japanese platform was seen bolstering its relationship with Ripple. Ripple has been fighting hard against the SEC to brush off any allegations of selling unregistered securities.

XRP Continues To Surge While Other Assets Plummet

XRP has been tussling with Polkadot [DOT] in terms of market cap. The asset, however, took over the fourth position as its market cap hit a high of $20 billion. At the time of writing, XRP was seen trading for $0.43 with a 12% surge in the latest 24-hours. The altcoin emerged as the most beneficial coin over the last week as it bagged gains of over 55% in the last seven days. Most of the altcoin’s trading volume came from Binance for the pair XRP/USDT.

Japan’s SBI Esports’ Players To Receive Salary In XRP

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Ripple has undoubtedly been making tremendous attempts to boost the adoption of the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, XRP. Partnerships and expansions have always been in the books of Ripple. Taking a leap ahead in the same, Ripple’s long time partner, SBI esports recently announced the incorporation of XRP into its remuneration process.

XRP Gets A Boost

Ripple’s alliance with the prominent Japanese financial platform, SBI Group goes way back. Both the platforms seemed to have taken their partnership to the next level with a recent announcement. The subsidiary of SBI Group, SBI esports revealed that it would pay its players their salaries in cryptocurrency instead of fiat. The announcement pointed out that these players would receive their annual salaries in XRP.

This announcement is reportedly the result of a sponsorship deal with SBI VC Trade, a crypto sales office and exchange. The announcement further read,

“In addition, as an innovator that creates innovative service businesses using crypto assets, which are the core of digital assets, we aim to create and nurture a healthy market based on customer-centricity, improve prices, expand liquidity, etc. We will strive to further improve satisfaction.”

While XRP continues to reign as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $11 billion, the latest news could further bolster XRP’s market cap. After lounging as the third-largest digital asset for a long time, XRP was defeated by stablecoin Tether whose market cap is at $15 billion. The latest move could further help XRP to regain its position.

While promoting the several services it has to offer, Ripple makes sure to endorse XRP. However, this doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the altcoin’s price. As the XRP community anticipates a significant surge in the price of XRP, the coin has prolonged its struggle to go past $1. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading for $0.243 with a whopping 9.74% increase over the last seven days.

Ripple Partner SBI and Japan’s SMFG to Team Up in a Bid to Cater to Millennials

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The Asian market has switched very quickly to the cryptocurrency industry, even exceeding the expectations set by the West. China and Japan have taken significant steps to boost their native fintech ecosystems.

The latest reports from Japan claimed that SBI Holdings, one of the country’s largest banking conglomerates, was getting ready to partner with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group [SMFG], the nation’s second-largest bank. The two entities will pool their resources to be the leading financial technology leader.

SBI’s push into the digital asset industry first came to light when it revealed its tie-up with Ripple based in San Francisco. The Ripple Partnership has elevated SBI’s status from being a national bank to a global baking network. SBI and SMFG stated that the new team would seek to create financial products and services that serve millennials much better than existing models.

SMFG is expected to acquire a significant stake in the SBI mobile brokerage unit called NeoModbile Securities. The 20% stake, worth billions of yen, would be the starting point for creating a new and improved banking ecosystem for the younger generation.

Aside from the acquisition, SMFG also plans to deposit a large chunk of capital into a 100 billion yen fund set up by SBI. Once the fund repository reaches an acceptable level, SBI will use the money to invest in blossoming fintech companies. The announcement even caught the eye of Nikkei Asian Review, that said in its latest publication:

“The two groups plan to offer a range of products, including mutual funds and insurance policies.SBI’s planned 100 billion yen investment fund that is to be set up with SMFG will focus on investments in companies that work with digital technology, including fintech, blockchain and 5G wireless networks. SMFG and SBI plan to accelerate their digital business strategies through collaborative efforts with investee companies.”

SMFG is not the first financial institution that SBI has partnered with, as it comes on the back of other tie-ups with lenders such as Shimane Bank, Fukushima Bank and Chikuho Bank. Japan’s focus on growing its native ecosystems was put on show with the partnership as the two companies pledged to support other regional banks and financial institutions.

Although Ripple was not mentioned during the partnership, it was easy to see how the news would be positive for the Brad Garlinghouse led organization. SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao is a member of the Ripple board of directors and is known to be a big supporter of its native cryptocurrency XRP as well. SBI’s foray into crypto was solidified last year when SBI Mining Chip, an SBI subsidiary started manufacturing cryptocurrency mining equipment for large scale use.

Ripple Gets Major Mentions in SBI Holdings’ Plans for Future Crypto and Blockchain Adoption

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Ripple and its partners have made it a point to deliver products all across the world for global consumption. Over the past two years, Ripple has undergone many changes to establish itself as a market leader in cryptocurrency cross border transactions.

Recently, SBI Holdings published a report outlining its next quarter financial plans. Ripple was mentioned several times in the report of SBI, most of which adhered to cross-border transactions and how the company intended to improve payment gateways.

SBI Holdings talked about how MoneyTap has been successful in accepting an investment from Ripple and therefore create more products on the blockchain. MoneyTap plans to accelerate commercial services through the implementation of applications, common gateways and a RC cloud.

The report added that over 34 banks had invested in MoneyTap. These banks included The Awa Bank, EHIME Bank, Kita-Nippon Bank and the Shiga Bank.

The SBI group is advancing the adoption of private cloud-based accounting systems to regional financial institutions in order to integrate their systems. In the beginning, the SBI Sumishin Net bank plans to introduce Hitachi’s accounting system into many workings.

Once this integration takes off, financial institutions are expected to operate more stably with reduced maintenance costs.

According to the report, the SBI Group will offer technology into the private cloud or the SBi Financial Cloud. The Cloud is expected to be powered by Amazon Web Services which will then support the common platform running on APIs.

This will then be used for Fintech ventures and various other services. SBI further claimed that it will provide an API platform to financial institutions to support the adoption of fintech startup companies’ services and systems.

At the moment, the SBI Group has adopted 10 companies while 5 other companies were in the process of adoption. Sources close to the company revealed that there are are seven more companies in the pipeline.

The next anticipated development from SBI was SBI DigiTrust, a platform that offers services that utilize advanced technologies of SBI security solutions and NEC.

SBI security solutions will utilize the distributed ledger technology of Corda as well as the popular SSO platform. The company will also include a new and improved security design with solid relationships with the financial industry. SBI believed that they possessed an increased knowledge of financial industry trends, an ace that would give them an edge.

SBI holdings has also partnered with Google’s digital skill training program “Grow with Google“. This was done to promote IT literacy rate in the local communities by working as a hub and partnering with regional financial institutions nationwide. SBI Group is expected to utilize the Google digitization support content to make that a reality.