SBI Plans Blockchain-based Digital Securities Exchange Launch

Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings has announced plans to launch blockchain technology-powered digital securities exchanges.

Per Nikkei, the plan is the brainchild of SBI’s chief executive Yoshitaka Kitao. The CEO is also the head of Japan’s largest and fastest-growing securities token offering (STO) body and a member of the Ripple board.

The exchanges, said Kitao, would be located in two new “smart city” fintech hubs to be built in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, and Osaka – Japan’s second-largest city.

Kitao added that the new developments would create two new international financial centers, which would become “hubs of next-generation finance.”

He added that the new developments would also see “digital stock exchange based on blockchain (distributed ledger) technology” launched at the sites, and spoke about plans to “attract fintech companies” to the new smart cities.

Kitao, a long-time crypto champion and XRP advocate, has recently been pursuing securities token-related business models, and hopes to launch a multi-company securities trading platform before the end of 2020. The platform would likely allow traders to deal in tokenized offerings from smaller companies that are yet to go public.

The SBI chief stated that he had been working with local authorities in Osaka Prefecture on the plan, and urged haste, hinting that the move could represent Japan’s “last chance” to establish itself as a financial center for the Asia-Pacific region.

SBI operates two crypto business subsidiaries, crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and SBI Crypto, a cryptoasset mining firm.
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