SBI to invest $270M in Indonesia’s Ajaib to scale yen stablecoin rails in Southeast Asia

SBI Holdings plans to acquire a $270 million stake in Indonesian online brokerage Ajaib Group as it looks to expand its yen-denominated stablecoin JPYSC and related blockchain settlement infrastructure across Southeast Asia, CoinDesk reported.

The transaction, expected to close by the end of this month, would give SBI a strategic foothold in Indonesia’s consumer and retail-investing market, estimated at about $375 billion by IMARC Group. Indonesia counts more than 20 million retail investors, according to The Straits Times.

Ajaib operates an online brokerage platform in Indonesia covering equities, FX margin trading, crypto and asset management products. SBI framed the deal as part of a broader strategy to build regulated infrastructure for digital assets, tokenized securities and cross-border stablecoin payments in the region.

“In this era of tokenization, the importance of global infrastructure for digital assets is greater than ever,” Yoshitaka Kitao, chairman and president of SBI, said in the company’s statement.

The investment follows SBI’s roughly $100 million acquisition of Singapore-based crypto exchange Coinhako Group in July and a separate investment in Singapore digital securities venue DigiFT, where the firms have formed a joint venture. SBI said these assets form a regional network that could support both JPYSC-based settlement and tokenized asset trading.

Indonesia is a key priority market for that build-out, the firm added. Local startup funding fell to about $340 million last year from $440 million in 2024 and well below the $9.44 billion raised in 2021, per Bloomberg, making Ajaib’s $270 million deal one of the country’s largest tech financings in recent years.

SBI’s push also sits within Japan’s broader digital asset agenda. The Japanese government has announced plans to migrate stocks and government bonds to blockchain-based infrastructure with 24/7 onchain settlement, potentially starting in the early 2030s, which could eventually intersect with SBI’s regional stablecoin and tokenization stack.