Osaka Prefecture has selected an SBI XDC trade finance project for public funding. The submission came from SBI XDC Network APAC, a joint venture between SBI Holdings and TradeFinex Tech Ltd. TOPPAN Inc. joined the project as a partner. Ginco Inc. signed on as a collaborating company. The proposal is titled “Building a KYB Scheme Utilizing Digital Corporate Certificates and Achieving Greater Efficiency through the On-Chain Execution of Export Factoring Transactions.” Osaka’s Global Financial City OSAKA Team administers the subsidy behind the award. The program funds proof-of-concept work that applies blockchain and AI inside the prefecture. Notably, the work begins during the current fiscal year.
SBI XDC Network APAC has been selected for the FY2026 Osaka Prefecture Pioneering Financial Market Formation Support Project Subsidy.
— SBI XDC Network APAC 株式会社 (@sbixdc) August 28, 2026
In collaboration with TOPPAN and Ginco, we will commence a demonstration of a next-generation trade finance platform utilizing vLEI and…
The Bottleneck Sits Inside Export Factoring
Factoring lets a business sell its trade receivables and collect cash early. Exporters lean on it heavily, because overseas buyers frequently pay on long terms. Meanwhile, the seller still needs working capital to fund the next shipment. The demonstration targets exporters of used vehicles and used automobile parts based in Osaka. That sector runs on high volume, thin margins, and buyers scattered across dozens of countries. Verification is where the process stalls. A financier must confirm the exporter, confirm the importer, and confirm that the underlying trade actually exists. Today, that work moves through scanned documents, email threads, and manual review. As a result, financing decisions take days that the exporter cannot always afford.
vLEI Turns Corporate Identity Into a Verifiable Credential
The Legal Entity Identifier is a 20-character code that identifies a company in financial transactions. GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, oversees the system worldwide. The vLEI extends that idea into cryptography. Instead of a lookup in a database, a vLEI is a digital credential that a counterparty can verify directly. Importantly, it can also bind a specific person to a specific role at that company. TOPPAN holds the authority to issue vLEIs, and the project draws on that role. Consequently, KYB checks shift from document collection toward credential verification. A factoring provider can confirm an exporter and an importer without rebuilding the same paper trail each time.
Ginco Builds the System and XDC Provides the Rails
Working with Ginco, SBI XDC Network APAC will build the business system behind the pilot. That system handles input, aggregation, and onchain recording of factoring transaction data. It captures trade details alongside vLEI information for both the exporter and the importer. The stated goal is one continuous flow covering customer inquiry, KYB, and payment collection. XDC Network sits underneath as the settlement and record layer. The network is a hybrid Layer-1 built for trade finance, supply chain data, and cross-border payments. Ginco brings wallet, node, and indexer infrastructure tuned to Japan’s regulatory environment. Together, the three roles cover identity, application logic, and the ledger itself.
The Cross-Border Identity Gap Gets Tested Too
Onchain identity only helps when both sides of a trade can produce it. Japanese exporters can obtain a vLEI through a domestic issuer. Their overseas buyers often cannot. Therefore, the project will research vLEI acquisition in one representative destination country for the participating exporters. It will also assess whether a local vLEI issuance framework is feasible in that market. That question matters more than it first appears. A verifiable identity standard delivers value only at scale, across borders. In contrast, a single-country deployment leaves the harder half of the KYB problem untouched.
Peter Warms of GLEIF joins a panel at @IdentityWeek_ID America on 2 September, covering decentralized identity integration, program challenges, and lessons from the "no phone home" discussion.
— Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) (@GLEIF) August 31, 2026
His angle: which legal entity stands behind a credential, and on whose authority it… pic.twitter.com/qoh80qAQ80
Stablecoin Settlement and Tokenized Receivables Sit on the Roadmap
The companies have outlined where the work goes after the demonstration. First, they plan to grow the number of participating customers inside Osaka Prefecture. Next, they intend to widen coverage to used vehicle and auto parts traders across Kansai and the rest of Japan. Additional industries follow after that. The scope also expands beyond exports leaving Japan. Future phases would cover shipments from overseas subsidiaries into Japan, plus multilateral trade flows. Beyond that, the partners plan to explore stablecoin-based settlement and the tokenization of trade receivables. Those two additions would move the project from record-keeping toward actual onchain financing.
Why Osaka Is Paying for This
Osaka is pursuing a formal strategy to position itself as an international financial center. The Global Financial City OSAKA Strategy frames the city as a financial frontrunner willing to test early technology. Subsidizing proof-of-concept work is how the prefecture attracts that experimentation. For SBI, the pilot connects a public blockchain to a real financing workflow with real counterparties. For GLEIF’s vLEI standard, it supplies an operating test outside pure compliance reporting. However, the project remains a demonstration, and its results are not yet public. The measure that matters is straightforward. It is whether a factoring decision gets faster and cheaper once identity and trade data live onchain.
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