SBI Holdings CEO Urges Ripple Partner with Multinational Companies

The CEO of SBI Holdings, Yoshitaka Kitao, has proposed that Ripple should partner with other multinational companies alongside the financial institutions it usually partners with. This recommendation comes in part due to how Japan has handled the COVID-19 pandemic that has rocked the world at large.

Aiming For Exponential Growth In Cross-Border Payments

Alongside being the CEO of a Japan-based financial giant, Kitao stands as a member of Ripple’s board. He spoke to the press during an SBI conference call on the 28th of April, 2020. During this call, Kitao explained that he would attend the next executive committee alongside his lawyers, asking them to promote the idea of new partnerships. Particularly, these new partnerships should be with multinational corporations, an example being the Japan-based trading company, Big Shosha.

In the call, Kitao stated that the Ripple network could expect the number of its cross-border payments to achieve exponential growth, should they add multinational companies to their roster. This is away from the typical partnerships Ripple does, primarily aiming to partner with financial institutions.

Aiming To Serve A Predicted Need

Kitao stated that he anticipates the adaptation of blockchain technology into the supply management space to be a far more pressing concern to the world. Kitao explained that during this coronavirus pandemic, SBI holdings experienced a supply chain disruption in regards to the essential supplies needed to combat COVID-19. In regards to this, Kitao stated how dependent SBI is for the supply of masks from China, seeing this as something that places SBI holdings in serious trouble, according to him.

Kitao is convinced that the transparency and traceability that Ripple offers in its blockchain will gain more importance during the future. He explained that the world would need to operate multiple supply chains with a level of flexibility in mind. Alongside this, it allows people to take countries better equipped to deal with the pandemic into consideration, in turn, allowing more people to buy Ripple. Another factor in supply chains, is you need to figure out what country provides for information to be freely available, and cooperates with others across the globe.

A Long Standing Partnership

SBI Holdings and Ripple have been working side by side for some time now. SBI Holdings partnered up with Ripple through a joint venture, SBI Ripple Asia. The goal of the venture is to promote the usage of the XRP token in the Asian financial markets and started all the way back in 2016.