Japan wants its digital currency: J-Coin

Japan wants its digital currency: J-Coin

A consortium led by Mizuho Financial Group and Japan Post Bank plans to launch a new digital currency, the J-Coin, before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. A future competitor of Bitcoin?

After Sweden, which drastically reduced the volume of cash in circulation by 27% since 2011, and dragged the Nordic countries in its wake; after the United States, where the banks HSBC, Barclays, UBS, and Santander are under development of the Universal Settlement Coin; after South Korea, which set itself the goal of being 'cashless' in 2020; it is Japan's turn to dream of the abandonment of hard cash and to carry a project of digital currency, the J-Coin.

The smartphone, new wallet
The consortium project, led by Mizuho Financial Group and Japan Post Bank, and supported by the Central Bank and Japanese regulators, aims to develop technology to pay for services and merchandise via a smartphone.
It must be said that in Japan, 70% of all transactions are in cash, which remains the favorite cultural payment model of the Japanese. This forces the authorities to maintain a monstrous amount of money, with costs - in processing, transportation, and auditing - for the government and the banks, which are very high.
In the same way, such a volume of cash causes that a large part of the transactions are undocumented, that thus they escape the taxation and feeds the black market. What to bring a reflection on the reduction of the cash and by association the deployment of methods of digital payment. Several European countries are thinking the same way.
Added to all this a deadline that makes the hair of Japanese bankers, the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The management of cash in major international events has always been a headache for local banks!