SBI launches 3% yen stablecoin lending in Japan

SBI VC Trade will begin accepting applications Thursday for a yen-denominated stablecoin lending program that offers an annualized 3% on JPYSC tokens lent for a 12-week term, the company announced in a press release.

Customers will lend JPYSC to SBI VC Trade and receive the tokens back at maturity plus a lending fee. At the advertised 3% annualized rate, the gross return over the 12-week period is about 0.69%, before taxes.

The company noted the yield is higher than the 0.325% to 1% annual rate it cited for ordinary yen deposits. The lending agreements generally cannot be canceled early, the release added.

The release cautioned the product is not a bank deposit and has no deposit insurance. It also warned that JPYSC tokens lent under the program fall outside statutory asset segregation requirements, meaning customers’ tokens may not be protected from the company’s creditors in the event of bankruptcy and lenders could lose some or all of their holdings.

SBI introduced the trust-structured yen stablecoin JPYSC on June 24. SBI previously launched stablecoin lending in Japan in March for Circle’s USDC and has described the yen lending service as a way to expand the stablecoin’s utility.

SBI Holdings announced a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation. Under the agreement, the Solana Foundation will join SBI R3 Japan, which will be renamed SBI Solana Global and will issue a new growth strategy focused on the yen-backed stablecoin. The partnership covers infrastructure for institutional onchain financial services, tokenized real-world assets, cross-border payments and payment systems for AI agents.

Regulatory and policy developments include a reported plan by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to increase funding and ease some regulatory requirements for crypto and Web3 startups. The government introduced the “Startup Total Power Package” in May 2025 and a Five-Year Startup Development Plan in 2022 that set a target of raising startup investment to 10 trillion yen by fiscal 2027. In April 2026, the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act was amended to classify crypto assets as financial instruments.

Applications for the 12-week JPYSC lending program open Thursday through SBI VC Trade’s platform. Tokens lent under the program will be returned at maturity together with the lending fee.