SBI Group Partners With Ondo Finance on Japan RWA Deal

SBI Group, one of Japan's largest financial conglomerates, announced on July 16, 2026, that it had entered a strategic partnership with Ondo Finance to bring Japanese real-world assets on-chain through Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited, with settlement denominated in JPYSC, SBI's yen-backed stablecoin. The arrangement routes distribution through SBI's existing financial ecosystem and targets Japanese equities and related asset classes as the initial tokenization candidates, according to The Block's reporting on the SBI-Ondo agreement. Under the structure disclosed, Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited will serve as the issuing entity for tokenized financial products linked to Japanese equities, while SBI's distribution network provides the institutional channel through which those products reach investors. Settlement in JPYSC — issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and described as Japan's first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin — is central to the operational design. SBI launched JPYSC in June 2024, and on the same day as the Ondo partnership announcement, July 16, 2026, the group also launched a JPYSC lending service offering a three-percent annual yield, according to Yahoo Finance's coverage of the JPYSC launch.

The partnership arrives days after Japan's Financial Services Agency reclassified cryptocurrencies as financial products under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, effective 2027, and approved a flat twenty-percent capital gains tax on crypto income — a significant reduction from the previous rate of up to fifty-five percent. That regulatory shift, reported by CoinDesk's policy team covering Japan's crypto reclassification, materially alters the compliance calculus for institutional participants structuring tokenized product offerings in the Japanese market.

Japan's tokenized securities infrastructure has been developing in parallel. Progmat, the Japanese tokenized securities platform founded by MUFG, completed the migration of its security-token platform from Corda 5 to a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 blockchain, as reported by Crypto.news on July 13, 2026. Those projects represent more than ¥452 billion in underlying assets and issued securities, and Progmat previously accounted for approximately sixty-three percent of cumulative issuance volume in Japan's national security token market. The SBI-Ondo arrangement operates independently of Progmat's infrastructure but enters a domestic market where institutional-grade tokenization rails are already active.

Ondo Finance, founded in 2021, built its institutional profile primarily through OUSG, a tokenized US Treasuries product, before expanding into Ondo Global Markets, which targets tokenized equities. SBI's interest in digital asset infrastructure extends across multiple recent transactions: the group acquired Bitbank for approximately $289 million and has established partnerships with Solana Foundation and Chainlink, the latter formalized through a blockchain and digital assets agreement covered by Finextra's report on the SBI-Chainlink deal. Those prior commitments provide the distribution and oracle infrastructure into which the Ondo product line would integrate.

Japan's updated stablecoin framework is also relevant to the settlement mechanism. Under the revised Payment Services Act, qualifying foreign stablecoins can enter the Japanese market through licensed Electronic Payment Instrument Exchange Service Providers, effective June 1, 2026. JPYSC, as a domestically issued trust-type stablecoin, operates within that framework without requiring the equivalence determination that foreign issuers must obtain from the FSA, giving SBI a structural advantage in yen-denominated settlement for tokenized products distributed locally.

The announcement does not disclose the specific real estate or equity assets selected for initial tokenization, the regulatory classification that will govern investor access — whether retail or qualified investor only — or the timeline for the first product issuance under the partnership. The BVI domicile of Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited raises questions about cross-border regulatory treatment that neither company addressed in the materials available as of publication. The haircut methodology, custody arrangements, and secondary-market liquidity provisions for the tokenized instruments were also not described.

What the announcement concretely establishes is a distribution and settlement framework: SBI's ecosystem will channel Ondo-issued tokenized products to investors, with JPYSC as the settlement currency. It does not establish a launched product, a named asset, a disclosed investor base, or a confirmed regulatory approval from the FSA for the specific instruments to be offered under this arrangement.