Overview
- On June 10 the banking arms of MUFG, SMBC and Mizuho signed a memorandum to form a council and pursue live stablecoin transactions in the fiscal year ending March 2027.
- The three banks plan to issue the token under a trust agreement with the banks as joint settlors and a trust bank or similar institution to act as trustee to segregate reserves from any single balance sheet.
- The project is aimed at institutional uses such as securities settlement, trading at selected brokerages and wholesale cross‑border B2B payments rather than retail consumer payments.
- The effort builds on an FSA‑supported pilot that tested joint issuance, a Progmat ledger backbone and corporate cross‑border flows but leaves key operational details unresolved, including issue size, trustee identity, blockchain rails and retail access.
- The announcement follows Japan’s 2023 stablecoin rules and a growing market of yen tokens, and the council’s design and regulatory review will determine whether the plan changes settlement speed and cost for corporate and cross‑border transactions.