SBI Puts Its Yen Where Its Yield Is: 3% JPYSC Lending Goes Live Thursday 🪙

Tokyo-based SBI VC Trade will begin accepting applications Thursday for a Japanese yen-denominated stablecoin lending service offering an initial annualized rate of 3% on JPYSC lent for 12 weeks, the company said in a Monday press release. At the advertised rate, the gross return over the 12-week term would be about 0.69% before tax. SBI said the product pays more than the 0.325% to 1% annual rate the company cited for ordinary yen deposits, adding that the offering is not a bank deposit, is not covered by deposit insurance and generally cannot be canceled early. JPYSC lent to SBI VC Trade will also fall outside statutory asset segregation requirements, meaning customers could lose some or all of their tokens if the company goes bankrupt, according to the release.

SBI described the launch as the first service in Japan to allow customers to lend yen-denominated stablecoins in exchange for passive yield, and said the product is "core" for realizing the future of onchain finance. The lending service follows SBI's June 24 introduction of JPYSC, a trust-structured yen stablecoin, and comes months after SBI VC Trade began offering stablecoin lending for Circle's USDC in March.

Separately, SBI Holdings announced a strategic partnership with the Switzerland-based Solana Foundation on Monday, aiming to build a Japanese onchain financial market. As part of the partnership, the Solana Foundation will join SBI R3 Japan, which will be renamed SBI Solana Global and issue a new growth strategy focused on the yen-backed stablecoin. The initiative is intended to expand stablecoins and tokenized real-world asset usage across Asia and to build infrastructure for institutional onchain financial services, cross-border payments and payment infrastructure for AI agents.

The developments follow comments from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who in a video address at the WebX 2026 conference said the Japanese government plans to strengthen support for crypto and Web3 startups, according to a report.