Minna no Bank, the digital banking arm of the Fukuoka Group, announced plans for stablecoin experiments involving the Solana blockchain, Fireblocks and local IT company TIS.
The bank, one of the first digital only institutions in Japan, plans to explore consumer and corporate use cases. In particular, it wants to explore using stablecoins to settle transactions involving tokenized real-world assets (RWA) such as digital bonds and real estate. Compared to other jurisdictions, real estate tokenization is comparatively advanced in Japan, with fairly regular issuances by real estate firms and financial institutions.
Previously Minna no Bank was involved in stablecoin experiments with two smaller Japanese banks, Tokyo Kiraboshi Financial Group and Shikoku Bank. In that case it used the Japan Open Chain blockchain, an Ethereum compatible chain with the validators comprising Japanese corporates, including the bank. The founder of the blockchain, Gu Technologies, also has a stablecoin subsidiary that conducted those trials.
By expanding from Japan Open Chain to Solana, this latest move shows institutions’ desire to engage with larger public blockchains that offer broader reach.
TIS, the IT partner, is involved in other Japanese stablecoin initiatives, including partnering with Japan’s second largest bank SMBC to explore a stablecoin issuance. Fireblocks is also a partner in that initiative that plans to use the Avalanche blockchain.
