Japan FinTech Observer #64. Welcome to the sixty-fourth edition of… | by Norbert Gehrke | Tokyo FinTech | Jun, 2024

Welcome to the sixty-fourth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. This newsletter has exceeded 10,000 subscribers (on LinkedIn). Thank you, and please keep sharing this edition if you find value in it!

The Bank of Japan’s June Monetary Policy Meeting (MPM) ended on Friday without any change to the target rate, and a decision to reduce the Bank’s purchases of JGBs. The BOJ will ascertain the views of market participants and come up with a detailed plan for “the next one to two years or so” to be presented at the July MPM.

We now see some divergence among analysts on whether the next rate hike will occur in July (CLSA, GS) or October (due to the LDP leadership election expected in September, MUFG Morgan Stanley), as well whether the third hike will take place this year (CLSA) vs in January 2025 (GS, MUFG Morgan Stanley). In any case, after the third rate hike the target rate will be between 0.25% to 0.5%

While the car manufacturers are working through their own trouble, the non-life insurers submitted their first progress report on the business improvement plans put in place after the corporate insurance price-fixing and Big Motor fraudulent claims scandals. Also, at the end of the week the SESC recommended administrative action against MUFG for violation of firewall rules, with the scale of expected sanctions difficult to assess.

Lastly, we have also taken a closer look at the global rankings published over the past month, these include the startup ecosystem (StartupBlink & Startup Genome), smart cities (Z/Yen) and gender equality (World Economic Forum). See here how Japan has fared.

Otherwise, here is what we are going to cover this week:

• Venture Capital & Private Markets: UB Ventures and One Capital have made strides in raising their next funds; Nissay Capital has established a new fund for pre-seed investments; Asuene has successfully raised $26.7 million in the first close of its Series C; MUFG, through its Ganesha Fund, has invested in Battery Smart; MS&AD Ventures invests in Sidekick; Global Brain Corporation has invested in Rise
• Insurance: Progress report on business improvement plans by non-life insurers
• Banking: Daiwa Securities pushing its ownership stake in Aozora Bank to close to 24%
• Payments: LINE Yahoo Japan and LINE Pay will gradually shut down LINE Pay; JCB and iMago have launched a project to provide a new shopping experience using UWB (Ultra Wide Band) and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)
• Capital Markets: The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission has recommended administrative action against MUFG; SBI Securities announced that its customer balances have exceeded 40 trillion yen
• Asset Management: Nomura will provide the Emerging Managers Program (EMP) to promote new entrants to the asset management business
• Digital Assets: Monex Group and Coincheck intend to extend the De-SPAC agreement to January 2, 2025; the Kanto Regional Financial Bureau took administrative action against CoinBest; the FSA issued a warning to LBank Exchange that is operating crypto-asset exchange business without proper registration; HARTi has obtained a patent in the NFT x CRM field; Metaplanet purchased an additional 250 million yen ($1.58 million) worth of bitcoin; Ripple launched the XRPL Japan and Korea Fund
• The Last Word: The New “Cool Japan”