Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) has formally launched its Payment Innovation Project (PIP), and its inaugural initiative is a major one: a stablecoin pilot backed by a consortium of the country’s three major banks.
Mizuho, MUFG, and SMBC, alongside partners like Mitsubishi Corporation, will use the project to examine how multiple institutions can lawfully and appropriately issue a shared stablecoin for payments.
This move, operating within the FSA’s established FinTech Proof-of-Concept Hub, underscores a coordinated regulatory and private-sector effort to advance blockchain technology in Japan’s financial landscape. The findings from the November 2025 pilot will be made publicly available.
