Nomura, one of the world’s largest foreign exchange dealers, is planning to partner with stablecoin issuer Circle to launch a service enabling instant foreign currency settlement for Japanese corporates, according to a report by the Nikkei. The service could launch as early as 2027.
Circle is the issuer of the $74 billion USDC stablecoin as well as EURC, the largest euro stablecoin. Nomura will handle onboarding, regulatory compliance and integration with banking systems, although as a major FX dealer it already has deep banking relationships and corporate client infrastructure. The integration work likely relates to connecting its existing systems with blockchain based settlement.
The Nikkei describes the target as large scale FX transactions that currently take about half a day to settle. USDC on blockchain would compress that to near instant. Japan’s FX market handled $440 billion in daily transactions as of 2025 according to BIS data, and Nomura is one of the biggest dealers in it. Nomura’s core business model here is unchanged. It is still the FX provider, making money on the spread. The stablecoin replaces the settlement plumbing underneath, not the trade itself.
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