Rakuten Wallet adds XRP for 44M users in Japan

Rakuten Wallet will list XRP as a payment method on April 15, 2026, enabling Rakuten Pay users in Japan to convert Rakuten Points into XRP and use the token at Rakuten Pay merchants.

Rakuten Pay serves about 44 million users and the wider Rakuten ecosystem has more than 100 million members. Rakuten has issued over 3 trillion Rakuten Points, an amount Ripple’s Senior Ecosystem Growth Manager Tatsuya Kohrogi estimated at roughly $23 billion in stored value that can be converted into XRP.

More than 5 million merchant locations across Japan accept Rakuten Pay. Those merchants will be able to receive payments funded by XRP-derived balances when users convert points or charge Rakuten Cash with XRP.

Kohrogi outlined the integration on April 13, describing how Rakuten Wallet will add XRP across payments, loyalty conversion and consumer transaction flows. He posted on X that users can buy XRP directly with Rakuten Points and charge Rakuten Cash with XRP to spend at merchants.

The integration embeds digital-asset functionality inside Rakuten’s existing payments and loyalty systems rather than requiring a separate crypto app, a model that may appeal to users comparing services under the best crypto wallets category. Customers will be able to acquire XRP through tools tied to their loyalty balances and use it within Rakuten’s payment rails.

Kohrogi wrote: “Starting April 15, 2026, Rakuten Wallet will launch XRP as both a listed asset and a payment method. Users can buy XRP directly with Rakuten Points and charge their Rakuten Cash with XRP to spend it at over 5 million merchant locations across Japan.”

Rakuten’s infrastructure links loyalty points, an exchange endpoint and a large merchant network. The company will operate the XRP listing within its payment and loyalty systems across Japan.