CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai
Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the intelligent edge platform
for securing and delivering digital experiences, and Mitsubishi UFJ
Financial Group (NYSE: MUFG), one of the world's leading financial
groups, today announced an expansion of their relationship through
the establishment of a joint venture, the Global Open Network, Inc.
(GO-NET) and their plans to offer a new blockchain-based online
payment network enabling next-generation transaction security,
scale and responsiveness.
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.
About MUFG
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) is one of the
world's leading financial groups. Headquartered in Tokyo and with over 360 years of history, MUFG
has a global network with over 1,800 locations in more than 50
countries. The Group has over 150,000 employees and offers services
including commercial banking, trust banking, securities, credit
cards, consumer finance, asset management, and leasing. The Group
aims to "be the world's most trusted financial group" through close
collaboration among our operating companies and flexibly respond to
all of the financial needs of our customers, serving society, and
fostering shared and sustainable growth for a better world. MUFG's
shares trade on the Tokyo,
Nagoya, and New York stock exchanges. For more
information, visit https://www.mufg.jp/english
About Akamai
Akamai secures and delivers digital experiences for the world's
largest companies. Akamai's intelligent edge platform surrounds
everything, from the enterprise to the cloud, so customers and
their businesses can be fast, smart, and secure. Top brands
globally rely on Akamai to help them realize competitive advantage
through agile solutions that extend the power of their multi-cloud
architectures. Akamai keeps decisions, apps and experiences closer
to users than anyone - and attacks and threats far away. Akamai's
portfolio of edge security, web and mobile performance, enterprise
access and video delivery solutions is supported by unmatched
customer service, analytics and 24/7/365 monitoring. To learn why
the world's top brands trust Akamai, visit www.akamai.com,
blogs.akamai.com, or @Akamai on Twitter.
Contacts:
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Tim
Whitman
Media
Relations
617-444-3019
twhitman@akamai.com
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Tom Barth
Investor
Relations
617-274-7130
tbarth@akamai.com
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.