Japan’s Largest Bank Unveils New Stablecoin Platform
After many years of developing digital currencies, Japanese bank MUFG has officially unveiled its own stablecoin project.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Japan’s largest financial group, has been working hard to take the lead in stablecoin development and has launched its own project.
Progmat Coin – the new blockchain stablecoin platform
On Wednesday, MUFG unveiled its stablecoin platform called “Progmat Coin”, a blockchain-based issuance and management system pegged 1:1 to the Japanese yen.
The platform aims to enable a “universal payment method for digital assets” by ensuring chain interoperability with a wide range of non-Progmat digital assets, as well as the Bank of Japan’s digital currency, the digital yen.
According to the announcement, the Progmat coin project builds on the input and work of MUFG’s “ST Research Consortium”, which was established in 2019 with the goal of developing standards for security tokens. The consortium has now been renamed the “Digital Asset Co-creation Consortium” to expand the scope of work beyond security tokens to other areas such as stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), crypto assets, and more.
As part of the project, the Japanese financial giant also plans to launch a stablecoin based on the Japanese yen, an MUFG spokesperson confirmed.
“It is true that we are aiming to issue a stablecoin in Japanese yen. We plan to issue our stablecoin in 2023,” the representative said. As previously reported, MUFG had been working on similar digital currency developments since at least 2015.
The spokesperson stressed that the latest stablecoin project is “completely different” from Japan’s main digital currency project, known as “DCJPY.” Announced in November 2021, the initiative brought together some 70 Japanese companies, including MUFG, Mizuho, and Sumitomo, to launch a yen-based digital currency in 2022.
The news comes amid growing interest among Japanese financial firms in issuing and managing digital currencies and stablecoins. Local news agency Nikkei Asia reported that Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. plans to issue a cryptocurrency pegged to gold.
As previously reported, Japan’s Financial Services Agency is planning to propose legislation in 2022 that would limit the issuance of stablecoins to businesses and bank transfers.
Andrey Kunev
Reporter at CoinsPress
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