Japan’s Mizuho Financial Set to Join Stablecoin Market in March

Published on N/A by Cryptovest Staff

Japanese banking giant Mizuho Financial Group is preparing to issue its own yen-pegged stablecoin next month.

Tokyo-based Mizuho Financial Group (MHFG) has announced new plans for its yen-pegged stablecoin, scheduling the launch for March, as reported by Nikkei.

The so-called J-Coin will support a new digital payment and remittance service, directly competing with leading Japanese cashless payment providers Rakuten and Line.

Ahead of the launch, MHFG has strategically partnered with over 60 financial institutions, whose total combined customer base exceeds 56 million people. Each client account will be directly linked to a J-Coin wallet so that adopters will be able to start using the new stablecoin instantly. Transfers between J-Coin wallets and customer bank accounts will be free to help stimulate mainstream adoption, according to the report.

A mobile J-Coin Pay application will also allow customers to purchase consumer goods by scanning QR codes at participating retailers during checkout.

Aiming to lure clients away from its competitors, MHFG is planning to undercut the existing 2%-5% transaction fee for processing cashless payments. The J-Coin wallet will also not charge any fees for depositing or withdrawing money into a bank account, nor will it involve any credit checking or age restriction. Link Pay, which currently dominates the Japanese market with over 79 million users and 1.3 million participating stores, charges 216 yen ($1.95) per withdrawal and prohibits anyone under the age of 13 from using the service.

MHFG hopes to attract 6.5 million users and over 300,000 vendors within the first two years of launching the J-Coin digital payment system. There have also been rumors that MHFG is attempting to strike a partnership with Alibaba’s Alipay to dramatically increase retail adoption and onboard more vendors.