LDP's Kihara Aims for 'Reiwa Financial Big Bang' With AI and Blockchain

This matters to anyone in Taiwan holding Japanese equities, Japanese funds, or simply yen in an account. Japan is rewriting its Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, and the politician driving it — the LDP's Seiji Kihara — puts blockchain-based stablecoins, tokenised deposits, and tokenised bonds and shares at the centre of financial trading rather than at its fringe.

The terms first. A stablecoin is a token pegged to a fiat currency. A tokenised deposit is a bank deposit that can move on a shared ledger. Tokenised assets are existing bonds and shares in that same format. The common thread is settlement, not speculation: trades that take days start completing almost immediately, which changes how much capital institutions must hold.

The real change is institutional. Banking, securities and insurance have been three separately supervised worlds, with different licences and products. Once they share a technical format — and AI automates how products are assembled and explained — the walls fall on the user's screen first, and regulation shifts from "who may sell what" to "who is liable as an asset changes form".

Note what this is not: bringing stablecoins inside the core means bank-style scrutiny, not free issuance.

Three paths: Japan gains regulatory clarity and foreign capital follows, benefiting custody and settlement providers; the law changes but conservative institutions do not move; or an early failure triggers a clamp-down.

Watch the statutory text, and which firm first sells deposits, bonds and insurance from one interface.