The Mitsubishi UFJ Banking Group, a Japanese financial powerhouse, is planning to develop a wallet that will be capable of storing and using “blockchain-powered digital assets” and NFTs, however, its primary focus appears to be on the securities tokens market. In addition, the financial behemoth said it has “begun preparations to halt the activities of Global Open Network Japan.”
The Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, the group’s trust banking subsidiary, is behind the project. The company announced in a news statement that the service will be called ProgmatUT and that the name was a homage to utility tokens.
The wallet will employ utility tokens to allow users to store a “variety” of “digital assets,” including security tokens and stablecoins, according to the business. It will also use new blockchain technology, and the company, along with a number of partners, will issue what they claim will be Japan’s “first asset-backed security token.”
“Multiple public offers” are also in the works, according to the corporation, and “a secondary market will be developed” next year, according to its roadmap. The blockchain network is also expected to launch in 2023.
The project appears to have been in the works since November 2019, when Mitsubishi UFJ reached an agreement with local securities behemoths SBI and Nomura, both of which have become increasingly interested in crypto and blockchain-powered tokenized securities offerings in recent years. Kenedix, a renowned Japanese real estate firm, was also a part of the purchase.
In Japan, tokenized real estate is also a burgeoning market, albeit no mention of property-related tokens was mentioned in the most recent press release.
The ecosystem, on the other hand, appears to allow users to create security tokens and manage them using the new wallet, which might be used in conjunction with tokenized loyalty point schemes.
In either event, the financial behemoth intends to halt the previously mentioned operations of Global Open Network Japan, blockchain-powered payments joint venture it co-launched with Akamai Technologies in April 2019. The network’s initial purpose was to create an “open platform with high scalability and multi-connectivity data processing in response to the rise of the internet-of-things (IoT),” which would allow for speedy blockchain-based payments in a variety of scenarios.
It was launched in April of last year, but Mitsubishi UFJ chose to discontinue it less than a year later, citing weak transaction growth, a coronavirus pandemic-related slowdown, poor penetration, and a lack of integration with the IoT sector as reasons.
