Japan’s three largest banks say a jointly issued yen stablecoin worked in a test. MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) announced on Oct. 16 that they had issued, transferred and redeemed the coin in a proof-of-concept run from July 17 to July 23.
The test used a cross-border payment scenario between Mitsubishi Corporation’s offices in Japan and overseas. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking acted as the agent trustee, and tech firm TISI built the wallet and blockchain connections. SMBC provided the blockchain platform used in the test, according to the banks.
How the coin is built
The coin was issued under Japan’s Payment Services Act as a trust-type stablecoin, with the three banks acting together as joint principal trustees. The money behind it sits in bank deposits. The banks said the design has no circulation cap, because they expect large-scale use.
There is one big limit by design. The coin is meant to move only among users who have completed identity checks at the banks. That makes it a permissioned bank product, not an open token anyone can pick up on an exchange.
The project ran with support from the Financial Services Agency’s FinTech PoC Hub, which approved the initiative in November 2025. The banks said the test also checked anti-money-laundering controls and how the operation works with several banks issuing one coin.
What it is not yet
This was a one-week test, not a launch. The banks did not disclose amounts moved in the test. They said the design “may be subject to change” and that they will keep working through issues with regulators in Japan and abroad before real-world use.
The timeline points to the near term. In the same release, the banks pointed back to a June 10 announcement about launching live transactions of the three-bank coin in fiscal 2026. Japan’s fiscal 2026 ends in March 2027.
The news landed the same week that Visa moved stablecoin prefunding for Visa Direct into commercial use and a U.S. bank, Cross River, added Ripple’s RLUSD to its core banking platform. The common thread: banks and payment networks are building stablecoin rails inside regulated systems, not around them.
Sources: MUFG Bank; SMBC; Mizuho; Trade Finance Global; Visa