[Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Plans to Invest 5% in SBI-Startale Joint Venture to Promote JPYSC Stablecoin Applications] According to a report by the Nikkei Asian Review on October 30th, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) plans to acquire a 5% stake in SBI Startale Marketing, a joint venture between SBI Holdings and Startale Group. The two companies intend to leverage SMFG's customer base to promote the application of the JPYSC stablecoin in asset management, payments, and other financial services. JPYSC is issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and circulated by SBI VC Trade. It adopts a trust-based issuance model and was officially launched on June 24th. As of October 30th, its outstanding balance reached approximately 20.8 billion yen. SBI has approximately 24 million individual customers and will explore using JPYSC for on-chain financial product settlement and instant payments in the future.