Japan's SBI Shinsei Bank plans to introduce a permanent service this autumn that pays yen deposit customers vouchers redeemable for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) or XRP, the Nikkei reported on Monday.
Japan's SBI Shinsei Bank to Reward Yen Depositors with Crypto: Nikkei
9 June 2026 - 09:06 CEST
By Oihyun Kim
Customers will receive vouchers worth 20% of their interest payments, in addition to the standard yen interest, redeemable at prevailing rates through SBI VC Trade, SBI Holdings' licensed crypto exchange. Customers must open an SBI VC Trade account in advance to redeem the vouchers.
The pilot begins on 10 Jun, covering term deposits of three months to five years and ordinary deposits, with a ¥300,000 ($1,900) three-month deposit earning roughly ¥500 ($3) in vouchers and balances above ¥30mn ($190k) receiving about ¥20,000 ($125). The bank has about 4.33mn targeted individual deposit accounts, with uptake among younger customers growing alongside its core base of those in their 40s and 50s. SBI Shinsei had not issued a formal statement by midday Tokyo Tuesday (03:00UTC).
SBI's crypto funnel widens
The programme slots into a broader push by SBI Group, which made Shinsei Bank a subsidiary in 2021, took it fully private in 2023 and relisted the lender on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Dec 2025 in a ¥370.2bn ($2.4bn) offering that valued it at about ¥1.3tn ($8.4bn).
SBI rolled out Hyper Deposit in Sept 2025, a yen savings product paying 0.4% with promotional XRP rewards, and credit-card affiliate Aplus debuted a Visa-branded crypto rewards card on 1 May. SBI VC Trade absorbed crypto exchange Bitpoint Japan on 1 Apr. SBI Holdings owns roughly 9% of Ripple, the US company behind XRP, and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Aug 2025 to introduce the RLUSD stablecoin in Japan.
No close global comparison
Banks pairing crypto rewards with traditional deposits remain rare. In the US, Quontic Bank became the first FDIC-insured institution to debut a Bitcoin rewards account in Dec 2020, though that model pays cashback on card spending rather than deposit balances.
Crypto-lending platform Nexo and Switzerland's Sygnum Bank offer yields on digital-asset deposits, not on fiat. Tying a crypto distribution directly to interest paid on a standard fiat deposit, while preserving deposit insurance and principal, has few precedents.
