Ripple’s partner SBI Holdings announces VCTrade Pro services a day after Money Tap finds new investors

While most innovations within the crypto-ecosystem came from its early players, some banking organizations have now pulled up their sleeves to stop their relevance from fading. Leading this sphere is Tokyo-based SBI Holdings, which today announced the launch of  its virtual currency exchange service, “VCTRADE Pro.” The information was shared through an official tweet,

“ [Notice of Launch of Virtual Currency Exchange Service “VCTRADE Pro”] From July 31 (Wednesday) today, virtual currency physical exchange service “VCTRADE Pro” with virtual currency exchange system was launched “

The company’s blog post highlighted the use of the following trading pairs, XRP/JPY, BTC/JPY, and ETH/JPY, which amused the XRP community by fueling hopes of Ripple’s native token, XRP, surging in value. As per the official website,

“Unlike the VCTRADE (sales point system) method, VCTRADE Pro concludes a sales contract for cash virtual currency between the company and the customer when it is promised by offering bid and sell prices for each virtual currency.”

Additionally, SBI Holdings’ sister company, Money Tap, has also announced a simultaneous upgrade soon after receiving investments from 5 leading banks. According to the official document on SBI’s website, crypto-giant Ripple seems to be maintaining a keen interest in Money Tap’s growth in the domestic market. Following the completion of domestic investments, the document read,

“Money Tap will now consider accepting an investment from U.S. Ripple, in order to strengthen technical cooperation and the promotion of initiatives related to international remittances.”

Source: SBI

Such an investment seems to be aimed at primarily enabling app-based international payment settlements. As of now, Money Tap’s business model allows users to perform monetary transactions only through a small list of partner banks. Additionally, the image below highlights Ripple’s ultimate goal to bridge the world of traditional financial institutions and general users.

Source: SBI

Further, while SBI’s VCTRADE Pro marks the beginning of core banking involvement in the crypto-ecosystem, Ripple seems to be positioning itself right at the center as a “ready-to-go” well-proven global infrastructure. If speculations line up, XRP may experience a surge in market cap and trading value and maybe, replace ETH’s position as the top altcoin.