Japan's FSA Backs Fourth Stablecoin Pilot as Megabanks Return to Settle Cross-Border Trade
Key Takeaways
- •The Financial Services Agency approved the fourth pilot under its Payment Innovation Project, marking the program's first test of stablecoin settlement in trade finance.
- •The trial brings together TradeWaltz, NTT Data, and four lenders — Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking — which hold a combined $6.8 trillion in assets.
- •Stablecoin payments under the pilot are triggered when an exporter uploads shipping documents through TradeWaltz and its bank approves the purchase of the resulting export receivable.
- •The three megabanks' trust-backed yen stablecoin, being developed under the first PIP project, is expected to be ready for live commercial transactions in the fiscal year ending March 2027.
- •The FSA has not set an end date for the trial, which began in September 2026, and plans to publish compliance and supervisory findings once it concludes.
Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) has given the green light to a fourth stablecoin pilot, this one designed to let cross-border trade be settled with stablecoins and adding trade finance to the list of sectors regulators have cleared through the programs.
Per a September 29 notice, the latest pilot brings back participants from earlier projects, including the country's three megabanks. It also names four lenders, trade-platform operator TradeWaltz, and NTT Data. If the pilot reaches full deployment, exporters could collect their money faster, while banks would be able to automate payment instructions and receipt confirmation.
Which stablecoin pilot did Japan's FSA approve?
The latest trial is built around TradeWaltz, which runs a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that digitizes international trade paperwork and, under the pilot, connects to a stablecoin system to pay out on export financing.
As it currently runs, the system still relies on letters of credit, bills of lading, and other similar physical documents — what TradeWaltz describes as slow, manual reconciliation and mailing between parties. The pilot is the programs' first trade-finance test of whether a supervised stablecoin, triggered by digitized documents rather than mailed paperwork, can shorten that settlement leg.
Under the TradeWaltz-led program, stablecoin payments are triggered after an approval process that starts when an exporter uploads shipping documents through TradeWaltz and ends when the bank signs off on buying the resulting export receivable.
For now, the receivable purchase and settlement between an exporter and its bank is the only leg of the trade chain open to participants in the stablecoin pilot. Expansion to cover importers and their banks could follow.
Fourth project under the FSA's payment lab
The move is the fourth approval under the Payment Innovation Project (PIP) and the fifteenth overall since the FSA launched the FinTech Proof-of-Concept Hub in 2017. PIP began operating as a payments-focused track inside the hub on November 7, 2025, with blockchain, financial law, and overseas trends specialists running the division.
The first PIP project, confirmed in November 2025 by Minister of State for Financial Services Satsuki Katayama, was based on Japan's three megabanks' plan to issue a payments stablecoin together. Nomura and Daiwa joined the three banking groups to test blockchain securities transfers settled in stablecoin in the second pilot announced in February 2026. In April 2026, the third program, run by DeCurret DCP and GMO Aozora Net Bank, covered tokenized deposit interbank settlement. Read in sequence, the projects trace the FSA's step-by-step widening of where regulated digital settlement is being tested — from bank-issued payments to securities transfers, interbank deposit settlement, and now trade finance.
The same megabanks, now on trade rails
Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are returning participants in the fourth pilot, with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking joining them. Between them, the four institutions hold a combined $6.8 trillion in assets.
In its release, TradeWaltz confirmed that the participating financial institutions will examine the settlement token together — pointing back to the joint stablecoin the three lenders are already building under PIP's first project. The trust-backed yen stablecoin is expected to be ready for live commercial transactions during the fiscal year that ends in March 2027.
The FSA plans to publish the compliance and supervisory findings once the experiment wraps, as it does for every PIP case. The agency has not set an end date, saying only that the trial runs from September 2026 for the time being.
The participants have sketched a longer roadmap that includes electronic bills of lading and smart-contract escrow services, both aimed at pushing more of the trade workflow on-chain.
Part of Japan's broader digital-asset push
On a larger scale, the pilot lines up with Japan's broader approach toward digital assets. As Cryptopolitan reported at the time, the FSA now has a dedicated Crypto Assets and Stablecoins Division as of August 2026, part of a plan to reclassify crypto as a financial product and cut the top tax rate.
