What happened
The Financial Services Agency told licensed stablecoin intermediaries on Monday that the 1 million yen ceiling on individual transfers, roughly $6,700 at current rates, will no longer apply, per CryptoBriefing's report citing the agency's guidance. The cap was introduced under the 2023 revision of the Payment Services Act, which created a licensing regime for electronic payment instruments and forced foreign-issued stablecoins to route through registered domestic intermediaries.
Tokens covered by the framework include yen-denominated instruments like JPYC and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust's Progmat Coin, plus dollar stablecoins distributed onshore through licensed channels. SBI VC Trade received the first license to handle USDC in Japan in early 2024, and Circle formalized that distribution partnership shortly after. The FSA left in place the reserve-backing, redemption, and AML checks that separate Japan's regime from lighter-touch offshore issuance.
What changes is transaction size, not the underlying licensing perimeter.
Why it matters
The old ceiling made regulated stablecoins useless for the flows that matter in wholesale finance. A Japanese exporter settling a container shipment, a bank moving intraday liquidity, a fund manager funding a Treasury purchase - none of those clear under $6,700. That is why on-chain settlement volume in Japan has stayed a rounding error against the country's broader payments footprint, even as Singapore and Hong Kong have leaned into tokenized deposits and stablecoin pilots.
Removing the cap signals the FSA now sees regulated stablecoins as plumbing for institutions, not just a retail wallet feature. It also sharpens the contrast with the US, where the GENIUS Act and Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act have been stuck in congressional back-and-forth for two years, and with the EU, where MiCA's transaction limits on non-euro stablecoins take a different tack.