Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten declared that a significant update of its Rakuten Pay mobile app are going to be released on March 18, as per the firm’s 2018 earnings release, published on February. 12. The app’s new structure seems to indicate that it'll support cryptocurrency payments additionally to fiat.

According to the company’s presentation material for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2018, the new version of the app can feature “all payment solutions embedded into one platform.”

As Top Market Group  reported in Jan, and therefore the recent materials ensure, Rakuten — known informally as “Japan’s Amazon”— revealed a revision to its company structure. The restructured company includes the firm’s cryptocurrency exchange “Everybody’s Bitcoin” as a part of a fresh established payments subsidiary, Rakuten Payment. The payment subsidiary, that was previously its loyalty subsidiary under the name “Spotlight,” also will include the corporation’s prepaid card service, Rakuten Edy.

The firm’s earnings release specifies that Edy are going to be supported within the updated app and additionally indicates support for QR code payments. Although the app update doesn't explicitly note crypto support, the company’s specification that “all payment solutions” will be supported on the platform implies support for crypto payments as part of its subsidiary, Rakuten Payment.

Rakuten acquired Japanese crypto exchange Everybody’s Bitcoin in August 2018 during a $2.4 million deal. At the time, company representatives reported that the firm was “considering entry into the cryptocurrency exchange industry” as it believes "the role of cryptocurrency-based payments in e-commerce, offline retail and in P2P payments can grow within the future."

In its earnings release, Rakuten reported a net profit for 2018 of about 141.9 billion yen (about $1.3 billion), a 28.4 % year-over-year increase from 2017.

In March 2015, Rakuten additionally declared that it had started accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment choice on its american portal, Rakuten.com.

Another Japanese internet and finance giant, SBI Holdings, has additionally shown major interest within the crypto sphere. The firm launched its own crypto exchange, Vctrade, in July. The exchange started accepting deposits in many major cryptocurrencies in Dec 2018.

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