SBI Holdings and Startale Group said on October 16 that they have joined Open Standard, the alliance behind the dollar stablecoin Open USD. The two firms will study a pilot that connects $OUSD with JPYSC, the yen stablecoin issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank. It is an exploration, not a live product. No launch date has been set.
What the pilot would test
JPYSC is a trust-backed stablecoin built to follow Japan’s Payment Services Act. $OUSD sits at the center of Open Standard’s work on a shared settlement layer for onchain finance. Linking them could give institutions a regulated way to move between yen and dollars without old foreign-exchange settlement routes. That is the idea, at least. The companies still need to check technical feasibility, regulatory treatment, and cost benefits.
Open Standard launched in June 2026. Its founding partners include Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa. The group now lists more than 200 financial institutions, fintechs, and banks as signatories. $OUSD is already live onchain, which the companies describe as a base for work with JPYSC.
SBI’s stablecoin work in Asia
The announcement adds to SBI’s existing stablecoin activity. SBI Group was first in Japan to offer the dollar stablecoins USDC and RLUSD. Startale has worked on real uses for JPYSC, including Japan’s first corporate bond that pays interest and principal in the yen stablecoin. In July 2026, SBI Global Asset Management, DigiFT Tech, and Startale showed JPYSC-powered settlement for tokenized securities. SBI chairman and president Yoshitaka Kitao linked the Open Standard work to the group’s SBI APAC Digital Economic Zone vision. The companies see the pilot as a step toward deeper links with global stablecoin infrastructure, including the network behind $OUSD’s launch for Stripe businesses.
What comes next
For now, the work remains at the proof-of-concept stage. SBI and Startale said they will keep working with Open Standard’s partner network inside applicable regulatory frameworks. There is no commercial service, production settlement, or trading activity starting. That leaves the usual questions open: whether the model can meet Japan’s rules, whether banks and fintechs will use it, and whether the cost case holds up. Perhaps the key test is regulatory clarity. The companies have not said when a decision might come.
