Fintech 2026

JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Ken Kawai, Shunsuke Aoki, Takeshi Nagase and Keisuke Hatano, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune

• where use of the token as a means of payment for goods, etc, to unspecified parties is permitted – certain requirements on the price and quantity of the relevant goods, etc, and on the technical char - acteristics and specifications of the token must be met. For example, at least one of the following characteristics must be present: (a) the minimum value per transaction must be sufficiently high (ie, JPY1,000 or more); or (b) the number of tokens issuable as a proportion of a transaction of minimum value is limited (ie, not exceeding 1 million). 10.13 Stablecoins The previous bill for amendment of the PSA was passed by the Diet and promulgated in June 2022, before it came into force on June 1, 2023. The amend - ments aimed at introducing new regulations on sta - blecoins. Under the relevant regulations: • stablecoins that are redeemable for fiat curren - cies (also known as fiat-backed stablecoins) will be regulated as EPIs. Non-fiat-backed stablecoins such as DAI will continue to be regarded as crypto assets; • persons permitted to issue EPIs directly to Japa - nese residents are limited to banks, funds transfer service providers, trust banks and trust companies that are licensed in Japan; • an entity that (i) sells or purchases EPIs, (ii) acts as an intermediary, a broker or an agent for the issuance, sale and/or purchase of EPIs, and/or (iii) provides custody services of EPIs, as a business, is required to undergo licencing as an EPI service provider (EPISP); and • an EPISP is subject to anti-money laundering and countering of terrorism financing (AML/CFT) regula - tions, including the travel rule. More specifically, an EPISP is required to provide information on a cus - tomer’s identity when transferring EPIs to any other EPISP upon the customer’s instructions. Moreover, an EPISP that continuously sends or receives EPIs to or from overseas virtual asset service providers (VASPs) is required to check whether such VASPs are conducting appropriate due diligence on users for AML/CFT purposes.

Trust banks and trust companies are eligible to issue stablecoins in the form of trust beneficial interests. Stablecoins of this type are classified as “Category III EPI”. Issuers of such stablecoins are responsible for redeeming them only to the extent of value of the trust assets underlying the stablecoins. Accordingly, if the value of the trust assets decreases, the amount redeemable by holders of the stablecoins will corre - spondingly decline. To ensure continued linkage of the value of the relevant trust beneficial interests to legal tender, and to secure redemption at face value, it was required under the relevant regulations before the 2025 amendment for the entire amount of the reserve assets backing the specified trust beneficial interests to be managed in demand deposits. However, since the time of Japan’s introduction of a regulatory framework for EPIs, other major jurisdic - tions such as the United States and the European Union have adopted regulatory systems that allow the reserve assets underlying stablecoins to be man - aged in instruments other than deposits, including government bonds. Consequently, the approach in Japan has been criticised as lacking balance relative to international standards. Considering these inter - national developments, the 2025 amendment of the relevant regulations, which entered into force in 2026, allows reserve assets backing the Category III EPIs to be managed, to a certain extent, in government bonds and other securities prescribed by the relevant cabinet office ordinance. The Japanese government is trying to accelerate the shift to open banking. Specifically, banks were legally obligated to make efforts to complete the develop - ment of an OpenAPI system by 31 May 2018. Howev - er, banks are not legally obligated to release APIs, and fees and other terms must be agreed upon separately between a fintech company and a bank. 11.2 Concerns Raised by Open Banking In many cases, banks impose security requirements on the users of OpenAPI, and conduct pre-screening and regular monitoring on such users. Banks also 11. Open Banking 11.1 Regulation of Open Banking

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