Ripple, the San Francisco-based provider of financial settlement solutions, announced that the Japan bank consortium will continue to drive and attract interest among the banking community in Japan, thus bringing the total member count to 61 that represents over 80% of total assets in Japan.

Last year August, the Japanese consortium of banks was created by SBI Ripple Asia and consists of 15 banks in a new network that will use Ripple’s blockchain technology for payments and settlement. The consortium later grew to 47 banks that successfully completed a pilot implementation of Ripple to enable real-time money transfers both domestically and internationally.

The announcement said that three major banks Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), MUFG and Mizuho have joined the Japan bank consortium using Ripple. Apart from these banks, Ripple also welcomes Japan Post Bank to the roster of the top banks by assets using Ripple for payments in Japan.

“We commend these banks in Japan for taking a giant step forward on behalf of their customers. This is a great example of a regional banks converging into a global real-time payments network for the greater good,” Marcus Treacher, global head of strategic accounts at Ripple, said.

Ripple said that it will launch a common mobile application later this year, for payments that will unite all the member banks’ customers worldwide.

The Japanese banks consortium is set to expand beyond and Japan-based non-Japanese banks are also invited to join the consortium.