Japan’s largest banks—MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC—along with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation and TISI Inc., have officially announced the successful completion of their first joint yen-stablecoin trial.
Under a closed pilot program regulated by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA), trading giant Mitsubishi Corporation tested cross-border settlements. A stablecoin issued as a trust beneficiary right successfully completed the full lifecycle—from issuance to final redemption into fiat currency—without any failures.
The system is scheduled to enter commercial operation before the end of this fiscal year.
What does this have to do with XRP? (Actually, it’s quite significant)
From an official standpoint, the consortium document does not mention Ripple. However, within the context of the Japanese market, this test is almost certain to be interpreted within the framework of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) ecosystem, as all three “major banks” have a long-standing history of integrating with Ripple’s technology. The article states that any bank blockchain initiative in Japan largely builds on the foundation laid by this network over the years.
As early as 2017, MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC joined a major banking consortium led by SBI Ripple Asia to deploy RippleNet technology for instant domestic and cross-border settlements. The article states that this institutional-level collaboration continues to this day.
Not long ago, as part of Japan’s financial infrastructure innovation initiative, Mizuho Bank and SMBC’s investment division entered into a direct agreement with Ripple Labs to deploy real-world asset (RWA) tokenization infrastructure and institutional-grade DeFi solutions specifically on the XRP Ledger.
The article suggests that these major banks are choosing to launch their own digital yen on the Progmat platform—created by MUFG on the Avalanche blockchain—as an attempt to build an alternative that is isolated from external liquidity bridge tools like XRP, in order to maintain full control over compliance and fees within the traditional banking system.
The article further states that this landscape may signal future market segmentation: on one hand, large banks' closed infrastructures and the Progmat platform may seek to dominate the conservative B2B transfer segment within enterprises.
On the other hand, SBI Holdings' launch of the regulated USD stablecoin RLUSD, combined with XRP’s existing liquidity, may enable it to maintain its dominance in cross-border retail and open fintech services.
The article concludes that the growing integration between banking platforms and the Web3 industry—including their participation in the XRP Tokyo summit—does not rule out the possibility that the commercial launch of the digital yen may not replace XRPL, but instead could foster a layered ecosystem where enterprise fiat and open digital assets coexist at the level of liquidity access points.