SBI Holdings, a major Japanese financial group, is working with the Solana Foundation to build onchain financial infrastructure targeting Japan's real-world asset (RWA) and stablecoin markets. The move is seen as a shift away from an enterprise blockchain-focused strategy toward public blockchains, with changes emerging in the Japanese financial sector's digital asset strategy.

According to blockchain outlet U.Today on July 13, SBI Holdings signed a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation and decided to completely overhaul the business direction of its subsidiary SBI R3 Japan. The company name will be changed to SBI Solana Global (SBI Solana Global).

The project will be pursued jointly with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), one of Japan's three major financial groups. The two sides plan to issue a yen-pegged stablecoin, JPYSC, and promote the digitisation and tokenisation of real assets such as corporate bonds, commercial paper (CP) and real estate.

SBI disclosed on social media a plan to build a Japan-led onchain financial market on the Solana blockchain. It also referred to SMFG as a global systemically important bank (G-SIB) and set out a goal of expanding Japan's RWA and stablecoin markets into global financial markets.

The new infrastructure goes beyond simple asset tokenisation. It is designed to support cross-border remittances as well as micropayments between autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents. SBI set out as its core goal building an onchain financial ecosystem in which Japanese financial products are directly connected with global investors.

A key part of the strategy shift is restructuring SBI R3 Japan. The entity has operated around the enterprise blockchain platform Corda. Going forward it will use Solana, a public layer-1 blockchain, as its core infrastructure.

U.Today described it as a symbolic example of major Japanese financial institutions shifting strategy from closed enterprise blockchains to open, blockchain-based financial infrastructure. SBI cited high transaction throughput, low fees and a large developer ecosystem as main reasons for choosing Solana.

SBI is not ending its existing partnerships. The company plans to maintain a multi-chain strategy, with existing partner Ripple continuing to handle business-to-business remittances and traditional financial payments infrastructure. Solana will take on areas that require complex smart contract functions, such as digital securities and tokenised asset markets, under a planned division of roles.

Market size also influenced the choice of Solana. According to RWA market analytics platform rwa.xyz, Solana currently has about $3.3 billion in tokenised assets and 697 active projects, keeping it among the leaders among alternative layer-1 blockchains. Avalanche was cited with about $2.1 billion in tokenised assets, while Ripple's XRP Ledger (XRPL) was put at about $322.9 million.

SBI also assessed the established Solana ecosystem as an important competitive strength. The outlet said access to hundreds of active projects and existing liquidity could reduce the burden of having to build a new market from scratch.

SBI Solana Global plans to first expand the platform in Japan and then extend services to major financial hubs in Asia. As a leading Japanese financial group moves to foster RWA and digital securities markets on public blockchains, the onchain shift in Asia's financial sector is expected to accelerate further.