Japan 2022 Payment Services Act Stablecoin Amendments

The amended Payment Services Act now contains a dedicated chapter for Electronic Payment Instruments. The Act’s purpose clause also refers to exchange of Electronic Payment Instruments and payment-services user protection. For stablecoin analysis, the central legal move is Article 2(5), which defines Electronic Payment Instruments to include certain currency-denominated property value recorded electronically, usable for payment to unspecified persons, purchasable or saleable with unspecified persons, and transferable through an electronic data processing system. The definition also covers specified beneficial interests in a trust and Cabinet Office Order equivalents.

The Financial Services Agency describes the regime as focused on “digital-money type stablecoins”: fiat-linked instruments designed to preserve redemption at par. Under the Japanese framework, banks, funds transfer service providers, and trust companies are the issuer categories identified for digital-money type stablecoins. The FSA’s materials distinguish those instruments from crypto-asset-type tokens that do not meet redemption expectations and may be handled under Japan’s crypto-asset rules rather than the Electronic Payment Instrument framework.

This distinction matters for taxonomy. The regime does not treat every token marketed as a stablecoin as an Electronic Payment Instrument. Classification depends on the instrument’s legal rights, transferability, redemption structure, issuer model, and use as a payment or settlement instrument.

The regime creates a registration perimeter for intermediaries. Article 62-3 of the Payment Services Act provides that no person may provide Electronic Payment Instrument services unless registered by the Prime Minister. The application framework requires information such as the relevant business category, the Electronic Payment Instrument handled, the issuer’s name and address, and the details and method of the services. In practice, this captures exchange, brokerage, agency, transfer-related, and management functions around qualifying stablecoins.

The amended Act and Cabinet Office Order impose conduct and safeguarding expectations on Electronic Payment Instrument service providers. These include information-security controls, oversight of entrusted service providers, explanations to users, segregation of users’ Electronic Payment Instruments from the provider’s own assets, periodic audits, and contracts with issuers that address allocation of liability for user losses. The Cabinet Office Order also requires user explanations covering the fact that an Electronic Payment Instrument is not Japanese or foreign currency, potential loss risks, payee-consent limits, issuer information, and redemption-right information.

The implementing package also interacts with Japan’s anti-money-laundering framework. The FSA’s May 2023 AML/CFT package added Electronic Payment Instrument service providers and certain high-value transferable prepaid-payment-instrument issuers to specified-business-operator treatment, set recordkeeping and transaction-verification details, and addressed travel-rule information for transfers of Electronic Payment Instruments and crypto assets. It also covered measures for unhosted-wallet transactions and checks when providers enter transfer-related alliance agreements.