MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) said a week-long trial of a yen stablecoin issued jointly by all three banks confirmed that the model is safe, reliable and workable, according to a joint release dated Tokyo, 16 October. The test ran from 17 to 23 July 2026 and is not a commercial service.
Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking and the systems firm TISI also took part. The banks said the trial was approved in November 2025 for support from the FinTech PoC Hub of Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA), the country’s financial regulator.
How the coin was built
The stablecoin was issued as “specified trust receivable rights” under Article 2(9) of Japan’s Payment Services Act, a legal category for trust-based digital money. The three banks acted as joint principal trustees, and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking acted as the agent trustee responsible for issuance operations and user-protection measures. The blockchain platform came from SMBC and was built by TISI, according to the release.
The design the banks currently assume has three features: joint issuance so the coin can circulate across all three customer bases; a trust structure with no cap on circulation; and trust assets held in bank deposits, with circulation limited to users who have completed identity checks at the banks. The release says that design may change.
What was tested
The banks verified issuance, circulation, transfer and redemption. They also tested a use case assuming cross-border payments between Mitsubishi Corporation’s offices in Japan and overseas, checking how operations work with several issuers, how anti-money-laundering controls apply and whether the systems hold up.
Why it matters: the model is one yen coin issued by Japan’s three largest banks together, rather than three competing bank tokens. If it goes live, corporate treasurers would get a single deposit-backed yen instrument that settles on-chain around the clock. For a primer on how stablecoins differ, see what a dollar stablecoin is.
Context
The banks said on 10 June 2026 that they aim to start live transactions of a three-bank stablecoin in fiscal 2026, which in Japan runs to the end of March 2027, and set up a council to work on it together. The same group is also running trials on trading traditional assets with digital money, announced 13 February, and on trade settlement through the TradeWaltz platform, announced 29 September.
Tokyo’s wider push on on-chain finance has included Japan’s on-chain JGB study in Asia Ten. In Europe, a bank-backed consortium is taking a similar route with Qivalis’s bank-backed euro stablecoin licence, and in Australia regulators are drafting new crypto platform rules.
What to watch: any announcement of a launch date for live three-bank transactions before the end of March 2027, and the FSA’s stance on the anti-money-laundering, user-protection and cybersecurity issues the banks say they will work through with authorities.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.