Japan’s Financial Services Agency, Ministry of Finance, and Bank of Japan are preparing a joint plan for a blockchain-based settlement system covering Japanese stocks and government bonds, targeting a fully operational network in the early 2030s. The agencies aim to complete the initial development plan by early 2027, a step that could put blockchain infrastructure at the center of settlement in one of the world’s largest government-debt markets.
The project would seek to replace the current two-day settlement cycle for equities and Japanese government bonds with real-time settlement. Under the proposed design, part of the current-account balances commercial banks hold at the Bank of Japan would be tokenized and used on a blockchain network to complete transactions.
The three public bodies are expected to begin working with domestic financial institutions this summer. Their planning document is set to address the network’s technical design, divide responsibilities among regulators, the central bank, clearing institutions and banks, and establish milestones for subsequent development.
A faster launch could be possible if the government approves the proposal and includes it in a multi-year strategic-sector investment framework expected to begin in fiscal 2027. Even in that case, full market-wide deployment would remain an early-2030s objective, reflecting the scale of Japan’s securities and government-bond infrastructure.
Real-time settlement would change how collateral moves
Moving from a two-day cycle to real-time settlement would alter the mechanics of Japan’s capital markets more than the way trades are recorded. Securities transactions currently involve a delay between the agreement to trade and the final exchange of cash and assets. During that interval, banks, brokers and clearing participants must manage counterparty and funding exposure.
A real-time blockchain system could reduce the period in which either side of a trade remains exposed to a failed or delayed payment. It could also allow government bonds to be transferred and pledged as collateral more quickly, a potentially useful feature in Japan’s highly liquid but operationally complex government-bond market.
Japan’s government debt market is valued in the hundreds of trillions of yen and remains a foundation for domestic bank liquidity, monetary operations and institutional portfolios. Any changes to the settlement layer would therefore require extensive coordination with existing clearing, custody and payment systems rather than a simple replacement of current technology.
The proposal’s reference to tokenized central-bank current-account balances suggests the agencies are examining a settlement asset tied directly to funds held at the Bank of Japan. That approach differs from using privately issued stablecoins alone for securities settlement, since participants would settle with a claim linked to central-bank money.
The plan does not mean retail users would gain direct access to Bank of Japan accounts. The initial focus is institutional settlement for securities, where access is likely to remain limited to regulated participants that already operate within Japan’s payment and clearing framework.
Bank pilots are already testing tokenized money
The government-led planning process arrives alongside a separate proof-of-concept involving roughly 40 regional and online banks. Those institutions are preparing to test interbank transfers using tokenized deposits, with trials expected to begin as early as this month.
Tokenized deposits are digital representations of commercial-bank deposits that can move over blockchain-based networks. Unlike many stablecoins, they are generally intended to remain within regulated banking structures, with the issuing bank responsible for redemption and customer relationships.
The regional-bank initiative could give Japanese lenders experience with blockchain payment rails before any national securities-settlement network reaches production. It may also provide regulators with operational evidence on issues that become critical at scale, including transaction finality, system resilience, data controls and interoperability between banks.
Japan’s three largest banking groups — Mizuho Bank, MUFG and SMBC — are also participating in a regulator-backed stablecoin pilot. That project is examining blockchain-based payment systems, placing tokenized deposits, stablecoins and tokenized securities within a growing set of connected domestic experiments.
The distinction between these projects matters for market structure. A securities-settlement system based on tokenized central-bank balances would address the final exchange of assets and payment among major institutions. Tokenized deposits and stablecoins could serve different payment uses, including transfers between banks or corporate payment networks. Japan appears to be exploring how those layers could coexist rather than relying on one digital-money model.
Government bonds have already entered blockchain trials
Japan Securities Clearing Corporation began a separate blockchain collateral trial in April with Mizuho, Nomura and Digital Asset, supported by the Financial Services Agency. The test examines whether Japanese government bonds can be used as blockchain-based collateral.
Collateral is central to securities financing and derivatives markets because it protects counterparties against losses if a trading participant fails to meet its obligations. Using tokenized government bonds could make collateral transfers more automated and easier to track across approved participants, though any production system would have to meet the clearing house’s existing risk-management standards.
The April trial gives the forthcoming government plan a practical starting point. Rather than designing a securities blockchain entirely from scratch, policymakers can draw on experiments involving major banks, a leading Japanese securities firm, the country’s clearing infrastructure and a technology provider specializing in distributed-ledger systems.
Legal changes are expanding the regulatory foundation
Japan has also accelerated work on the legal framework surrounding digital assets. In July, the country passed amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act that would reclassify roughly 105 cryptocurrencies as financial instruments. The changes are scheduled to take effect during fiscal 2027.
The amendments would introduce a separate tax framework for crypto assets, with an effective rate of about 20%, compared with current tax rates that can reach 55%. The changes could give domestic traders a more consistent legal and tax structure, although the securities-settlement project itself is aimed primarily at regulated financial institutions rather than retail crypto activity.
Earlier this month, the Financial Services Agency established a dedicated cryptocurrency and stablecoin division, formalizing a unit focused on supervising crypto-related businesses and digital-money products.
Taken together, the settlement proposal and the parallel banking pilots place Japan’s policy agenda closer to the infrastructure layer of digital assets: payment money, securities ownership, collateral and clearing. The early-2027 plan will show whether the agencies can turn those separate experiments into a common framework without disrupting the systems that already support Japan’s stock and government-bond markets.
To explore how tokenised stocks may reshape investing, read this in-depth guide on tokenised stocks next.
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