CRB Group, the Fort Lee-based parent company of Cross River Bank, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's SBI Holdings to explore a strategic alliance and a proposed joint venture covering financial services, payments and digital assets. The deal, still in its early stages, would aim to serve customers across Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
The agreement was reported Wednesday by ROI-NJ, which detailed a sprawling list of possibilities under discussion between the two firms. Among them: a proposed asset-management vehicle focused on private credit and structured products, with SBI Holdings potentially stepping in as a strategic cornerstone limited partner. The companies are also weighing whether to develop and distribute tokenized products backed by real-world assets, including loan receivables, and whether to support cross-border payments using both firms' banking and payment infrastructure.
Also on the table, per the outlet's report: payment services built for transactions initiated by artificial intelligence agents, and an arrangement in which SBI Group companies could make on-chain financial products available through Cross River's platform. SBI's distribution network and banking infrastructure, meanwhile, could be used to offer Cross River's fintech services throughout Japan and Asia-Pacific. SBI Holdings also plans to make a strategic investment in CRB Group, though the companies disclosed no amount for that planned investment and gave no timetable for establishing the venture.
A Possible Role for Japan's Yen-Pegged Stablecoin
One of the more notable threads in the proposal involves JPYSC, the yen-denominated stablecoin that CRB Group and SBI Holdings are considering integrating with Cross River's platform. The idea, according to the same ROI-NJ report, is that Cross River's platform could eventually support institutional, cross-border and tokenized-asset transactions using JPYSC. SBI Holdings developed JPYSC together with Startale Group, and the token itself is issued by SBI Shinsei Trust & Banking.
Japan's Financial Services Agency has already weighed in on the broader stablecoin push. The agency said in June that the SBI Group had announced the issuance of Japan's first trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin, and the agency has indicated it intends to provide steady institutional support for the initiative, even as some technical regulatory questions remain unresolved.
Every piece of the proposed arrangement, from the tokenized-asset products to the AI-payment services, is subject to further discussions, definitive agreements and regulatory approvals from authorities in both Japan and the United States, ROI-NJ reported. Nothing here is finalized yet.
JPYC's Rocky First Year Looms Over the Timing
The timing of CRB Group's interest in JPYC comes as the token has struggled to gain traction domestically. Only 3.2 billion yen worth of JPYC was in circulation as of Oct. 23, according to CoinDesk, compared with 12.1 billion yen in cumulative issuance since launch. The outlet reported that JPYC's issuer pinned part of the shortfall on a 1 million yen daily issuance limit tied to Japan's Type II funds-transfer rules, which has limited corporate adoption. Japan's Financial Services Agency is reviewing its stablecoin regulations more broadly, with a roadmap expected in early 2027, per the same report.
Despite the soft numbers, JPYC has kept adding partners, including AZ-COM Maruwa, SBJ Bank and LINE NEXT, the CoinDesk piece noted. SBI Holdings, for its part, is expanding its digital-asset business internationally and already operates crypto asset exchanges in Japan and Singapore.
Cross River's Fintech Footprint
Cross River Bank has built its business around an API-based Banking-as-a-Service platform that lets fintech companies offer regulated banking products without securing their own bank charter, according to an analysis from Sacra. The bank maintains more than 80 fintech partnerships, including with Affirm, Coinbase and Stripe, the same analysis found. Sacra estimates Cross River generated $517 million in revenue in 2025, up 6% from $489 million the prior year.
The bank has also built out a commercial lending arm: its Commercial Banking Group facilitated nearly $1.5 billion in loans in 2025 while retaining $550 million on its own balance sheet, Sacra reported. Cross River previously raised $620 million in a March 2022 funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Eldridge Industries that valued the company above $3 billion, per the same source. Whether the Japan venture ultimately moves forward will depend on the regulatory approvals and definitive agreements that both companies say still need to be worked out.
