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South Korean credit card company Shinhan Card has announced that it has signed an agreement with Japanese electronic payment instrument trading service providers SBI VC Trade and SBI XDC Network APAC to test yen stablecoin payments for tourists and cross-border trade settlement between Japan and South Korea. The agreement was signed on Tuesday, and the testing scope includes stablecoin card payments, wallet-to-wallet payments, and cross-border settlement, as well as evaluating anti-money laundering and fraud detection mechanisms.The initiative aims to support cross-border payments and settlement between South Korea and Japan and improve payment convenience for tourists. In the first eight months of 2026, tourist exchanges between the two countries exceeded 10 million visits, including 7.42 million South Korean visitors to Japan and 2.7 million Japanese visitors to South Korea.Shinhan Card announced in April this year that it had completed a proof of concept for stablecoin payments and cross-border settlement. SBI VC Trade registered in March 2025 as Japan's first electronic payment instrument trading service provider and can handle USDC. (Cointelegraph)
Jack McDonald, Senior Vice President of Ripple's stablecoin business, disclosed eight recent developments regarding RLUSD in a post on X on June 29, covering settlement, regional access, on-chain liquidity, cross-border payments, multi-chain support, exchange listings, charity, and the Japanese market. Mastercard has expanded its settlement capabilities to support RLUSD across eight blockchain networks, including the XRP Ledger. Ripple has also expanded RLUSD's availability in Turkey through partnerships with BiLira, Bitexen, and Bitlo, and collaborated with Bitso to enable RLUSD and MXNB to support liquidity and cross-border transactions via the XRP Ledger's Permissioned DEX. RLUSD has also achieved multi-chain support through Wormhole Native Token Transfers and entered the Japanese market via SBI VC Trade after receiving approval from the Japan Financial Services Agency. Additionally, RLUSD has been listed on exchanges such as Gate and Floq, integrated with the cross-chain infrastructure provider Squid Router, and Ripple has joined Water's GetBlue campaign as its exclusive digital asset and payment partner.
According to The Block, Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin RLUSD has received regulatory approval from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) and has officially launched in Japan, classified as a “new type of electronic payment instrument” under the Payment Services Act. The stablecoin is available to institutional and retail users via SBI VC Trade, the cryptocurrency platform operated by Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings.
Odaily, June 24 - According to official sources, SBI Group and Startale Group jointly launched Japan's first yen stablecoin, JPYSC, on June 24, 2026, which is based on a trust structure. Issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, the stablecoin manages its reserve assets through a trust bank, featuring lower transfer costs and support for large-value transactions.As Japan's first stablecoin classified as a Type III electronic payment instrument, JPYSC's core advantage lies in combining the regulatory transparency of the Japanese financial system with the programmability of blockchain technology. It aims to build a yen settlement infrastructure connecting traditional finance with on-chain markets.Initially, the project is limited to use within SBI VC Trade accounts. However, technical preparations for migration to a public blockchain are complete. Once regulatory and tax policies are clarified, external circulation will be opened. JPYSC's application scenarios span six major areas: on-chain foreign exchange markets, institutional lending, RWA settlement, retail payments, cross-border remittances, and over-the-counter (OTC) trading.