Japanese Banking Giant SMBC Partners with Ava Labs to Explore Stablecoin Development
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC) is entering the stablecoin market, collaborating with Ava Labs, Fireblocks, and TIS to explore commercialization in Japan.
Key details include:
- Development of a framework for issuing and circulating stablecoins
- Analysis of regulatory requirements
- Focus on using stablecoins for settling tokenized financial and real-world assets, such as government bonds and real estate
- No specified timeline for commercial rollout
The stablecoin market has grown nearly 50% to $228 billion over the past year, becoming essential for global digital asset markets and gaining popularity for remittances and payments.
Japan's regulatory framework recognizes stablecoins as electronic payment instruments since 2023. Recently, Circle launched its USDC token in Japan after obtaining regulatory approval.
SMBC has prior experience in digital assets, including establishing a digital asset custodian and testing security token issuance.