Akamai and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group team up to form GO-NET, a joint venture for blockchain-based payment network

Akamai Technologies, the leading content delivery network (CDN) services provider for media and software delivery and cloud security solutions, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) are teaming up to launch the Global Open Network, Inc. (GO-NET), a joint venture for blockchain-based Online Payment Network. The new payment network will enable next-generation transaction security, scale and responsiveness. MUFG is one of the world’s leading financial groups and a member of global blockchain consortium R3. The company is heavily involved in the development and progression of blockchain technology, as an investor and strategic partner with San Francisco-based Coinbase – the world’s most popular way to buy and sell Bitcoin.

GO-NET is the result of more than three years of close collaboration between Akamai and MUFG. Both Akamai and MUFG will be investors in GO-NET, which is expected to make the new payment network available in Japan during the first half of 2020. GO-NET aims to provide a comprehensive set of services, including support for existing payment processing functions, pay-per-use, micropayments and other developing IoT-enabled payment transactions.

Critical to the joint venture will be Akamai’s innovative Blockchain as a Service solution, which will leverage its globally distributed Intelligent Edge Platform to power the online payment network. Akamai’s Blockchain solution is proven to be capable of processing more than one million transactions per second at under two-second latency per transaction, which is orders of magnitude faster than existing solutions. In addition, transactions executed on the platform will be secured and accelerated by Akamai’s market-leading cloud security and performance offerings, which positions it extremely well as a robust enterprise platform for real-time transactions at scale. MUFG, as one of the world’s leading global financial groups with a long history and excellent reputation for trust, will provide extensive know-how of financial services and expertise in business development to bring sustainable growth and success to the joint venture.

“This joint venture with MUFG sets the stage for a new blockchain-based online payment system that can better serve customers’ and partners’ payment processing needs,” said Dr. Tom Leighton, CEO and co-founder of Akamai. “The collaboration between MUFG and Akamai over the last three years has demonstrated what is possible when industry leaders join forces to solve a challenging problem. Akamai and MUFG are committed to delivering innovative solutions at a level of security, scale and responsiveness never before achieved.”

“Financial services need to embrace digital innovation to meet greater demands for security, capacity and efficiencies, and to serve evolving market and consumer needs,” said Hironori Kamezawa, Group CDTO of MUFG and CEO of GO-NET. “MUFG has high expectations for our joint venture with Akamai. Our goal is to enable rapid innovation in digital payment services, leveraging a transformative platform, with built-in security, hyper-scale and efficiencies. GO-NET aims to expand the payment network business to a global scale, and enhance the services to support diverse payment ideas in the upcoming IoT era.”

Throughout their collaboration, Akamai and MUFG have drawn upon their experience as leaders in their respective industries. Akamai has leveraged its decades of experience in developing and deploying distributed systems at global scale, along with market-leading performance and security services, in building the Blockchain as a Service technology. MUFG has leveraged its vast presence and expertise in providing financial services at a global scale. The new payment network is expected to offer differentiated services with improved scalability, reliability, performance and security.