M
itsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, the trust division of MUFG, has acquired a high-rise building in Osaka City for over Yen 100 billion ($681 million). The company plans to use this property as a hub for creating digital securities and tokenized real estate offerings. These products will be sold to both retail and institutional investors.

    Institutional buyers, such as life insurers, will purchase the tokenized real estate through private real estate investment trusts (REITs). Japan's market for tokenized real estate is still in its early stages, with a small but growing secondary market on the Osaka Digital Exchange's START marketplace. This platform lists six real estate tokens, with modest monthly trading volumes of Yen 23 million ($157,000).

    Since the first digital securities offering in 2021, there have been 63 issuances in Japan, totaling Yen 194 billion ($1.3 billion). Around 20% were bonds, while most others were in real estate. Mitsui Digital Asset Management has been particularly active in tokenizing real estate through its Alterna platform, which offers direct-to-retail solutions.

    Mitsui initially partnered with MUFG Trust for trust structure requirements but created its own trust structure, the Alterna Trust, to speed up token issuance. Although this move appears to be a competitive response from MUFG Trust, the companies maintain an indirect relationship through Progmat, MUFG's digital securities platform. Mitsui recently signed a deal to continue using Progmat for most of its security tokens.