Japan's big banks join forces on stablecoins to speed corporate payments: Nikkei

Japan’s three megabanks are joining forces to issue stablecoins pegged to the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar as global interest in tokenized fiat rails ramps up.

According to a Nikkei report, Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui (SMBC), and Mizuho aim to create a common standard for corporate clients and cross-border payments. The consortium’s agenda suggests yen and dollar liquidity could be natively available inside Japan’s banking perimeter, rather than solely via foreign issuers.

The plan will begin with the Mitsubishi Corporation pilot as the first application, forming a potential distribution base spanning the banks’ 300,000+ enterprise relationships.

Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to track a reference asset, typically the U.S. dollar or another fiat, used for payments, market settlement, and collateral. They seek to combine programmability and instant finality with traditional-style reserves and disclosures, a structure now being codified in multiple jurisdictions.

Introducing stablecoins would mark a step-change in Japan’s corporate payments stack and follows the country’s gradual opening to fiat-backed tokens. Authorities are preparing approvals for domestic yen stablecoins, while other large institutions explore deposit tokens and tokenized cash channels. Japan Post Bank has announced plans to roll out DCJPY — a tokenized yen deposit — by fiscal 2026, signaling broad interest among incumbents in onchain settlement.

Moreover, Japan’s market is drawing fresh entrants as the rules are clarified. Ripple and SBI have targeted an early-2026 rollout of RLUSD in Japan.

Stablecoins have become crypto’s dominant payments primitive, with total circulating value recently surpassing $300 billion for the first time, according to The Block’s data.

Policymakers across Asia are also racing to define their roles. South Korea is preparing a stablecoin bill, while Hong Kong is launching a licensing regime for stablecoins.

In the U.S., the GENIUS Act has established the first federal framework for issuers, a template that global regulators are likely studying. Officials, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, also expect the market to surge above $2 trillion in circulation by 2028 as regulations kick in and market share diversifies among service providers.