Aplus, a credit card and financial services company under Shinsei Bank Group, and SBI VC Trade, the cryptocurrency exchange arm of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings, have joined forces to add cryptocurrencies as new reward items that can be redeemed using Aplus Points.

Aplus credit card holders will gain the ability to exchange their accumulated Aplus Points for XRP, as well as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Points get accumulated by users based on how much they spend. Prior to the introduction of crypto, they could be redeemed for physical or digital goods, redeemed for cash or transferred to other partner point programs. These points can also be converted to airline miles, with 1,000 APLUS points being equivalent to All Nippon Airways (ANA) miles.

Spending ¥200 results in getting 1 APLUS point (equivalent to ¥1). If one's total monthly spending exceeds ¥50,000, they become eligible for an additional 0.5% bonus. APLUS points are valid for a total of two years from the month they are initially earned.

Now, card users will be able to redeem 2,100 Aplus Points for 2,000 JPY worth of either XRP, BTC or ETH. 

The availability of the XRP option is not surprising given that SBI Group has been a longtime partner of Ripple. In fact, the token was the only trading option available on SBI VC at launch back in 2018. 

Last February, as reported by U.Today, SBI VC Trade added support for XRP lending. 

Earlier, SBI Holdings also launched a non-fungible token (NFT) project on the XRP Ledger (XRPL).