Table of Contents
Researcher
\[ASA News] is a bi-weekly newsletter where we share the most important news related to stablecoin in Asia. (2026.01.19~02.01)*
Written by Moyed
1. [News] My Number Card-Based Authentication Enables Stablecoin Payments Without Wallet Apps
Source: Japan's My Number Card × JPYC Stablecoin Payment Trial
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and partners have launched Japan's first payment trial combining the national digital identity card "My Number Card" with the regulated stablecoin JPYC. The pilot runs through the end of March 2026 and is available at 20 stores in the Marunouchi and Akasaka districts of Tokyo, including SMBC's headquarters restaurant and convenience stores. Simply tapping a smartphone with an activated My Number Card on a dedicated terminal allows users to complete payments in seconds using JPYC, without the need to install a separate wallet app.
The trial integrates multiple key infrastructures developed jointly by SMBC, Hitachi, and JPYC. Personal authentication is handled by Hitachi's "PII-PMS" system, which processes My Number Card data. The "Smartphone-based JPYC Wallet" distributes a dedicated wallet through Hitachi's "SDW" system, while "HARPS" (Hitachi Asset Registration and Payment Service) processes transactions. JPYC (Japan Yen Coin) is a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the yen, issued by JPYC Co., Ltd. and approved by Japan's Financial Services Agency in August 2025. Customer experience testing will also be carried out, alongside the validation of core infrastructure including issuance, transfer, redemption, and accounting workflows.
The My Number Card is a government-issued identity card carrying each citizen's unique ID number, currently held by approximately 88% of the population. Originally designed to streamline administrative procedures, its payment integration is seen as a significant step in Japan's push toward digital public services and financial convergence. The trial builds on December 2025's announcement of a "My Number Card-Linked Stablecoin Wallet PoC" by Hitachi, JPYC, and others—this time with SMBC participating as the financial institution and expanding the experiment from PoC to real-store payments.
2. [Commentary] Why Japan's Public-Private Stablecoin Infrastructure Sets the Benchmark for Asia
2.1 Moyed (ASA Contributor, Delta Network)
Japan's "My Number Card × JPYC" trial is a landmark case that shows stablecoins can go beyond the world of crypto investing and embed themselves into daily commerce. The key to its design is the direct linkage between the national ID system and the stablecoin payment infrastructure. By using My Number Card-based authentication, users don't need to install a separate crypto wallet or go through a cumbersome KYC flow. This is a very different approach from private stablecoin services that are available today, and it is only possible because the public sector—government and financial regulators—has taken on a central role.
The breadth of the participants is equally notable. SMBC—one of Japan's three megabanks—joins alongside Hitachi, a major IT infrastructure provider, and JPYC, a stablecoin-native startup, making this a textbook public-private-traditional-finance-crypto-native consortium. This kind of alignment is hard to replicate in markets where crypto regulation is still highly fragmented, such as Korea or the United States. In Japan, however, the amended Payment Services Act of June 2023 created a clear issuance framework for stablecoins, and the FSA has been cooperating actively with the industry through its own regulatory sandbox. JPYC being designated as a "crypto asset" (not simply a digital token) under this framework and going live in August 2025 shows how Japan has been building the legal perimeter for this moment.
The regional implications are significant. China is expanding digital yuan pilots, Hong Kong is preparing to grant stablecoin issuer licenses, and Korea is running multi-bank KRW stablecoin deposit-token experiments, so Asian markets are each carving out their own digital currency paths. Japan's differentiator is that it is pursuing a "public-private infrastructure convergence" model, anchoring stablecoins directly into national digital identity. If this trial succeeds, Japan could become the most mature and most trusted digital payment market in Asia and a benchmark architecture for how other jurisdictions can integrate ID, regulation, and stablecoins.
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