Minna Bank, a smartphone-only Japanese digital bank, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Japanese arm of Backpack. The two companies will explore building Minna Bank's services into the crypto trading platform Backpack plans to open in Japan, starting with yen deposits and withdrawals. The plan depends on Trek Labs Japan, the Backpack group's Japanese company, first registering as a crypto exchange operator, a step the company is still preparing for.
Minna Bank announced the agreement on 12 November 2026, and Backpack confirmed it the same day in a post on X describing Minna Bank as "a digital bank under Fukuoka Financial Group (FFG), one of Japan's largest regional banking groups."
What Minna Bank and Trek Labs Japan agreed
Minna Bank and Trek Labs Japan signed a basic agreement to start examining how Minna Bank's financial services could be used on the Web3 infrastructure and crypto trading platform Trek Labs Japan intends to offer in Japan. The agreement commits the two companies to studying the tie-up together.
The concrete first step runs through Minna Bank's banking-as-a-service business, in which the bank supplies accounts and payment functions that another company builds into its own app. Once Trek Labs Japan is registered, the two companies aim to embed Minna Bank's services, starting with yen deposits and withdrawals, directly into the trading platform. For a customer, that would mean moving yen between a bank account and the exchange inside one connected service.
Backpack's post puts it as bringing together "Backpack's global onchain infrastructure and Minna Bank's banking capabilities to explore new ways to connect digital banking with crypto-asset services in Japan."
Trek Labs Japan's crypto exchange registration comes first
Trek Labs Japan is not yet a registered crypto exchange in Japan. Minna Bank's release says the company "is preparing for registration as a crypto-asset exchange service provider" (our translation) and frames the whole first phase as premised on that registration.
According to the release, Trek Labs Japan was founded in April 2023, is based in Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo, and plans, develops and runs crypto and blockchain services. The release describes Trek Labs Japan as the Japanese entity of the group that runs Backpack's self-custody wallet and exchange globally, and says the group aims to build its Japanese services in compliance with local regulation.
Tokenized deposits are on Minna Bank's longer list
Beyond yen transfers, the two companies say they will look at working together on next-generation onchain finance, a phrase both the release and Backpack's post use. Minna Bank's release names two ideas. One is the use of tokenized deposits, a blockchain-based form of ordinary bank deposits, which Minna Bank says it is considering issuing. The other is linking Minna Bank's own app with investment services that Trek Labs Japan would provide.
Both are described as future plans under consideration. Minna Bank says it will announce the details of the partnership separately (our translation).
Backpack Securities, Solana tokenized stocks and Backpack's Japan plans
Outside Japan, Backpack runs a self-custody crypto wallet and an exchange. Its brokerage arm, Backpack Securities, issues tokenized US stocks on Solana, which have spread across the network's DeFi apps, from Kamino's Backpack Market for borrowing USDC against them to Sunrise's listing of a tokenized S&P 500 ETF. In the US, the company added Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani to the Backpack US board in September 2026.
Japan has been on Backpack's map for a while: co-founder Armani Ferrante talked about building a crypto exchange in Japan on a 2024 podcast episode. The Minna Bank agreement names a bank the Japanese platform could use to move customers' yen.
The things to watch are Trek Labs Japan's exchange registration, which the yen service depends on, and the follow-up announcement Minna Bank has promised, which should say what the Japanese platform will offer and when.
