Japan Digital Yen

According to the Bank of Japan Pilot Progress Report (July 2025), the CBDC Forum comprises 64 private companies organized into 7 working groups, with the experimental system achieving 50,000 transactions per second in high-load testing (10,000 DB updates + 40,000 balance inquiries). The system uses an account-based centralized ledger with a 'record splitting' mechanism that divides user balances into multiple records for parallel processing. According to the Bank of Japan (February 2, 2026), the 10th Liaison Committee meeting concluded with Working Groups being sunsetted and replaced by targeted Discussion Groups, marking a structural reorganization. Named CBDC Forum participants include Rakuten Payment, AEON Bank, JCB, Seven Bank, SoftBank, SORAMITSU, Dai Nippon Printing, Daiwa Securities, Microsoft Japan, Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Merpay, and Money Forward. According to BOJ Executive Director Kazushige Kamiyama (June 2025), the Bank of Japan has no plans to issue a CBDC at this time, though acknowledging it may become critical infrastructure. No issuance decision or launch timeline has been set. According to East Asia Forum (July 2025), Japan's cashless payment share reached 42.8% of all transactions in 2024, totaling 141 trillion yen.

Updated: Mar 29, 2026