Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) is reportedly seeking to put a digital currency called “coin” into practical use in the latter half of 2019. MUFG is currently developing “coin” as a digital currency based on blockchain technology. News of the planned rollout was revealed by MUFG president Kanetsugu Mike in an interview with Japanese news media agency Asahi Shimbun.

MUFG originally unveiled the overall concept of “coin” in 2017 under the name MUFG coin. “coin” is a digital currency based on blockchain technology. One of the main features of “coin” is that its value will be pegged to the Japanese yen at a rate of 1 “coin” = 1 JPY. In October 2018, MUFG announced that it will change the name of its digital currency from MUFG coin to “coin.”

In Japan, major banks other than MUFG, such as Mizuho Bank, Ltd. and SBI Sumishin Net Bank, Ltd. have also started to develop digital currencies. However, MUFG has announced that MUFJ coin (now “coin”) as the first digital currency in Japan that was developed for the purpose of reducing costs such as remittance fees and charges for banks through the use of blockchain technology.

MUFG has advanced a wide range of demonstration trials using “coin.” Notably, in April 2018, MUFG conducted trials of automatic payments that involved processing shopping payments using “coin” based on facial recognition and artificial intelligence (AI) without the use of any checkout counters. Going forward, MUFG intends to enthusiastically pursue trends such as electronic payments and cashless transactions based on the Internet of Things (IoT).

*This article was written by Fisco