Akamai, MUFG announce blockchain-based payments network

Cloud delivery platform Akamai Technologies has announced a partnership with Japan-based Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) to introduce a new blockchain-based online payment network for next-generation payment transactions.

The new technology is expected to be capable of processing more than one million transactions per second, at latencies of less than two seconds per transaction, executed across the payment network by Akamai's cloud offerings. The underlying blockchain architecture is expected to be extensible to 10 million transactions per second, the company said.

MUFG and Akamai intend to leverage the technology, built and deployed on Akamai's intelligent platform, for the payment network that is expected to be available in Japan during the first half of 2020, Akamai said in a statement.

This payment network will include support for current payment processing, pay-per-use, micropayments and other developing Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled payment transactions.

"This new blockchain-based online payment system, built upon our Cloud platform, will be designed to address the concerns related to scalability, latency and security that have to date hindered the broader use of blockchain," said Tom Leighton, CEO and co-founder of Akamai.

"We have high expectations for our partnership with Akamai to provide customers the ability to support significantly greater volumes of high-speed payment transactions without compromising the level of security required for payment networks," added Nobuyuki Hirano, President and Group CEO of MUFG.