On Wednesday Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Japan's largest financial group, introduced its stablecoin platform called "Progmat Coin", a blockchain-based system for issuing and managing stablecoins anchored at a 1: 1 ratio with the JPY. The platform aims to enable a “universal payment method for digital assets”, providing cross-chain interoperability with a wide range of other digital assets other than those issued on Progmat, as well as Japan's central bank's digital currency, the digital yen. According to the announcement, the Progmat Coin project is based on the contributions and work of the "ST Research Consortium" of the MUFG, established in 2019 with the mission of developing security token standards. The consortium is now in the process of rebranding into the "Digital Asset Co-creation Consortium", with the aim of expanding the scope beyond security tokens to other sectors such as stablecoins, NFTs, crypto assets and others.
As part of the project, the Japanese financial giant is also planning to introduce a Japanese yen-based stablecoin, a spokesperson for MUFG confirmed to Cointelegraph. “It is true that we aim to issue a Japanese yen-based stablecoin. We plan to issue our stablecoin in the course of 2023, ”the representative said. As previously reported, MUFG had previously been working on similar digital currency developments since at least 2015. The spokesperson pointed out that the latest stablecoin project is "completely different" from Japan's leading digital currency project known as the "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 Japanese financial companies increasingly interested in issuing and managing digital currencies and stablecoins. Local news agency Nikkei Asia reported last week that Japanese trading house Mitsui was planning to issue a gold-pegged cryptocurrency. As previously reported, the Japanese Financial Services Agency was planning to propose legislation in 2022 to limit the issuance of stablecoins to banking and wire transfer companies only.