Five months ago, we wrote that SBI Holdings was planning a digital securities exchange in Osaka. Today Nikkei Asia reported that SBI Holdings has partnered with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group to launch the exchange in spring 2022 and start handling digital securities in 2023. The Osaka Digital Exchange (ODX) will be 60% owned by SBI and 40% by SMFG.
Update: SBI has confirmed the news and states that it will initially offer stocks followed by tokenized securities in 2022. All subject to regulatory approvals.
The exchange will use blockchain technology and aims to offer trading services outside of the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading hours.
The two companies are collaborating on multiple fronts, including last August SMFG taking a 14% stake in SBI R3 Japan, which develops enterprise blockchain solutions in Japan.
SBI also has an interest in another Osaka exchange, the Osaka Dojima Commodity Exchange.
Meanwhile, the Japanese investor has numerous bets around digital assets. It has arrangements for digital asset ventures with Boerse Stuttgart and Switzerland’s Swiss Digital Exchange. The latter is a joint venture in Singapore. It’s an investor in tokenization platform Securitize, and has an interest in Nomura”s tokenization platform BOOSTRY, which will initially target debt.
Last month SBI bought cryptocurrency institutional market maker B2C2. And these transactions are just a sample of its blockchain and digital assets interests.
