One of the largest Japanese financial institutions, Mizuho Bank, will issue its own stablecoin by March 2019, according to The Japan News.
As it states, the new development will involve approximately 60 regional banks. The so-called J-Coin will allow users to make payments with a QR code on a smartphone app at stores and also transfer funds from their bank accounts to the app in advance.
It’s expected that in the future, J-Coin will be used for salary payments as well as team up with Alipay.
Mizuho Financial Group President Tatsufumi Sakai says "the business of financial settlements has become more important and is expected to continue to grow."
However, Mizuho is haunted by bad reputation in crypto space. In January 2014, a user of the bankrupt MtGox Joseph Lack transferred $40,000 to an account at Mizuho that processes deposits of the crypto exchange users. The bank accepted these funds and withdrew a commission for the transaction.
Lack waited until the deposit appears in his MtGox account. But a month later, the bitcoin-exchange completely stopped trading, and the client never managed to return the money.
According to the plaintiff's statement, the bank tried to hide from the users of the exchange the fact that it had secretly tried to break off partnership relations with the bankrupt institution.
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