Rakuten Pay customers in Japan can fund purchases with yen proceeds from XRP sales through Rakuten Wallet, which converts the asset before crediting the customer’s payment balance.
Rakuten’s payment guidance says Rakuten Wallet sells the customer-selected amount and adds the proceeds to Rakuten Pay balance, known as Rakuten Cash. Rakuten Wallet says a spread applies to the sale, adding a cost for customers using this route.
Rakuten Wallet’s XRP access began later than planned. The company delayed a launch scheduled for April 15, then made the asset available on Android on April 30 and iOS on May 7.
Binance’s rewards offer is separate from the payment service. The exchange says its current promotion pays eligible holders of Ripple USD (RLUSD) in XRP. For the week ended Oct. 16, Binance listed a 5.98% base annualized rate; qualifying multipliers can raise that rate. Users in Japan are excluded from the promotion.
The 22.25% effective annualized rate cited for Binance applied to a different RLUSD campaign, for the week ended July 24. That campaign ended in August and required participants to meet a trading-volume condition in addition to holding RLUSD. Binance says the rate entry for the final week of its current promotion is to be updated Oct. 23.
