Digital Securities Business Is About To Bloom

Introduction

For last 12 months, we have seen several interesting announcements from Japanese big financial institutions which unveiled their strong interests in entering into digital securities (a.k.a. security tokens) business.

In November 2019, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group announced the establishment of research consortium to develop standards around digital securities management. It is also unveiled that Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, one of the biggest trust banks in Japan, has developed a blockchain based platform named "progmat" which enables automatic management of digital securities' transactions.

In February 2020, Mizuho Financial Group launched a demonstration test of issuing digital securities targeting individual investors. The Group is also planning to establish a blockchain based platform for digital securities transactions.