Japan's three megabanks have completed an international payments test using a stablecoin they jointly issued. CoinPost, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Oct. 16 local time that Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp conducted a cross-border payments trial from July 17 to 23 with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking and TISI.

The three banks reviewed the full process from issuing and transferring to redeeming the stablecoin, assuming payments between Mitsubishi Corp's Japan base and its overseas base. The trial focused on confirming whether a stablecoin issued jointly by the three banks works in an actual payment flow.

The project follows an initiative adopted by Japan's Financial Services Agency in November 2025 as a supported task under the "FinTech Proof-of-Concept Hub·Payment Advancement Project (PIP)". The three banks earlier, on June 10, disclosed a policy to put the jointly issued stablecoin into real transactions within fiscal 2026 and a plan to set up a council to discuss operations and governance.

The issuance structure is a trust contract in which the three banks act as joint settlors and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking serves as trustee. The stablecoin was issued in the form of a "specified trust beneficial interest" under Article 2, Paragraph 9 of the Payment Services Act. It is classified as an "electronic payment instrument" under the Payment Services Act, making its legal treatment different from that of cryptocurrencies.

A key review item was the operating framework needed when multiple banks act as settlors to issue a single stablecoin. The three banks examined regulatory responses aligned with the service design, and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking reviewed practical items such as user protection measures. In the remittance area, they also confirmed anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism frameworks and system effectiveness, assuming various use cases.

The parties also presented a design direction for real transactions. The current concept is to use deposits as the underlying asset and to circulate the stablecoin among users who have completed identity verification at banks. The focus is on meeting demand for payments and remittances, and changes remain possible as the concept is still at an early stage.

Financial institutions affiliated with the three megabanks are also conducting on-chain finance tests in parallel. On Feb. 13, they disclosed a test related to traditional asset trading and transfer of rights, and on Sept. 29 they separately disclosed a trade settlement test using the trade platform TradeWaltz.