Akamai and MUFG establish GO-NET
| Based on Akamai's Intelligent Edge Platform
| Next-Generation Payment Security, Scalability, and Response Speed Enhancements

Akamai announced on the 19th that it will establish a joint venture, Global Open Network Inc. (GO-NET), with Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).
This joint venture will not only expand their partnership, but also provide a new blockchain-based online payment network that will enhance next-generation payment security and improve scalability and response times.

Akamai and MUFG have been working closely together for the past three years to launch GO-NET. As investors in GO-NET, the two companies plan to launch a new blockchain-based payment network in Japan in the first half of 2020. The goal is to comprehensively support various services, including existing payment processes, pay-per-use, micropayments, and IoT-based transactions.

Akamai and MUFG have achieved this joint venture by leveraging their respective industry leaders' accumulated experience.

Akamai has leveraged decades of experience developing and deploying world-scale distributed systems, along with industry-leading performance and security services, to deliver Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) technology.

MUFG leverages its global reach and expertise to provide financial services on a global scale. The new payment network is expected to offer differentiated services through improvements in scalability, stability, performance, and security.

At the heart of this joint venture is Akamai's BaaS solution. This solution strengthens the online payment network by leveraging Akamai's globally distributed Intelligent Edge Platform.

Akamai's blockchain platform reduces latency per transaction to less than two seconds and can process over one million transactions per second, ensuring significantly faster processing times than existing solutions.

Akamai Cloud Security ensures secure and fast transactions, making it a robust enterprise platform for large-scale real-time transactions.

MUFG, a world-class provider of financial services, will provide its long-standing expertise in the financial services sector and expertise in business development to support GO-NET's sustainable growth.

“This joint venture will lay the foundation for a new blockchain-based online payments system that can provide customers and partners with the payment processing they need,” said Tom Leighton, co-founder and CEO of Akamai. “Over the past three years, Akamai and MUFG have demonstrated the potential of bringing industry leaders together to solve problems in the blockchain industry.”

“Financial services must embrace digital innovation to meet the demands for security, capacity and efficiency, and to meet market and consumer expectations,” said Hironori Kamezawa, Chief Digital Transformation Officer (CDTO) of MUFG and CEO of GO-NET. “Our goal is to accelerate innovation in digital payment services by leveraging a platform with built-in security features and superior scalability and efficiency.”

He continued, “GO-NET is a global “We will expand our payment network business to scale and expand related services to support various payment methods in the IoT era,” he said.