SBI Group announced Monday that it has entered a strategic partnership with blockchain infrastructure provider Chainlink to accelerate the adoption of digital assets among financial institutions, with Japan as the initial focus market.
SBI Group Partners with Chainlink to Advance Institutional Digital Asset Adoption
The collaboration will centre on tokenised real-world assets, tokenised funds and regulated stablecoins, drawing on Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to facilitate secure, compliant cross-chain transactions.
Use cases under development include tokenisation of assets such as real estate and bonds, bringing net asset value data for funds onchain, and enabling payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement for foreign exchange and cross-border transactions.
Chainlink’s Proof of Reserve will also be used to provide transparency around stablecoin backing.
A recent survey by SBI Digital Asset Holdings is said to have found that 76% of over 50 financial institutions surveyed intend to invest in tokenised securities to benefit from reduced costs and faster settlement, though the absence of institutional-grade infrastructure was highlighted as a key barrier to broader adoption.
“It has been great working with the SBI team, they are one of the most forward-looking and technically advanced groups in the blockchain industry,” said Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink.
“SBI’s choice to rely on the Chainlink standard for their digital asset transactions shows that the security/reliability, compliance features, and cross-border connectivity of Chainlink are what is needed to do high-value institutional transactions.”
Yoshitaka Kitao, chairman and chief executive of SBI Holdings, said: “With our combined strengths, we are delighted to be working together on developing groundbreaking, secure, compliance-focused solutions … that accelerate the widespread adoption of digital assets in Japan and the region.”
