Soramitsu wins METI grant to test CBDCs across Pacific islands and Pakistan
What's the deal? Japanese blockchain firm SoramitsuDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → CBDC has won a grant from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to run a feasibility study on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and digital savings bonds. The grant falls under METI's FY2025 Supplementary Budget programme aimed at the Global South.
What's the endgame? Soramitsu will test CBDC platforms across six Pacific Island nations — Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Palau, and Fiji — plus Pakistan. Using its open-source Hyperledger Iroha v3 framework, it plans to build a common platform to test the issuance, distribution, and redemption of digital currencies tied into existing local payment rails.
Why now? The target regions face significant hurdles around access to basic financial services and the efficiency of inter-entity settlements. The study will also assess institutional and regulatory readiness before any commercial deployment.
Track record: Soramitsu CBDC was spun off from parent Soramitsu in March 2024 to focus on overseas CBDC deployment. In October 2020, Soramitsu co-launched "Bakong" with the National Bank of Cambodia; by late 2025 the platform held 30 million accounts across a population of 17 million, with annual transaction volume of US$274.6B—US$40B times Cambodia's GDP.
It has also completed prior CBDC trials with the central banks of Laos, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Pakistan, and built a blockchain savings bond framework for Palau's Ministry of Finance.
The signal: Japan is positioning its blockchain architecture as export infrastructure for the Global South, backing a domestic firm to lower cross-border remittance costs and expand financial inclusion. For emerging economies weighing digital currencies, Soramitsu's Cambodia numbers offer a working template.
Read more: fintechobserver.com
Image credit: Artem Beliaikin
