Japanese fintech company JPYC Inc. is to start issuing the country's first stablecoin as early as this autumn.
The Tokyo-based firm was approved by the Financial Services Agency as a funds transfer service provider on Monday, with qualified approval to issue stablecoins. The company expects its stablecoin to be used for individual international money transfers and corporate payments.
The stablecoin, which will be called 'JPYC', will be fully convertible to the yen and backed by domestic savings and Japanese government bonds
"We want people in the world to use Japanese yen through our stablecoin," Noritaka Okabe, JPYC's CEO, says. He says that the firm aims to issue 1 trillion yen's worth of the stablecoin over three years.
JPYC sets the upper limit of issuance at 1 million yen's worth of stablecoin per client per business day. There is no limit on the amount that can be transferred or held. Transfer and issuance fees are free.
Shah Ramezani, co-founder and CEO of London-founded stablecoin infrastructure company Noah, says that the prospect of the first yen-pegged stablecoin is further proof that investors, businesses and institutions want trusted, local options.
But, he cautions, "the real challenge isn’t just launching more coins - it is connecting them in a way that replaces outdated, slow and costly payment systems like Swift. Without global rails, we risk recreating the silos of the old financial system instead of building something genuinely new.”