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Japan FinTech Observer #139

Norbert Gehrke

Norbert Gehrke

— 9 min read
Japan FinTech Observer #139

Welcome to the one hundred thirty-ninth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer.

We are hearing that now is the best time since the pandemic to visit Kyoto. You will still see some late autumn foliage, the Japanese Yen is moving closer to its 160 JPY/USD ceiling (or beyond 180 JPY/EUR) if you are a foreign visitor, and Chinese tourists have all but disappeared. Was tackling overtourism on your bingo card for Takaichi's first actions?

A supplementary budget certainly was. Coming in at JPY 17.7trn and around 2.8% of GDP, the proposed spending is more than last year-end's supplementary budget of a mere JPY 13.8trn. Given inflation, the economists we folllow see the public debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of this fiscal year still declining from the prior year. Hence no reason to panic just yet, and the revenue side will soon be bolstered by increased visa and departure fees.

Here is what we are going to cover this week:

  • Venture Capital & Private Markets: five years of UPSIDER & 100,000 client companies; KKR is seeking $15 billion of investment in its fifth Asia private equity fund; first Japan investments by General Atlantic and Bertelsmann
  • Insurance: Tokio Marine acquires Agrihedge; Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance acquires stake in asset manager Barings
  • Banking: Quarterly results for MUFG, SMFG, Mizuho and SuMi Trust; Japan Digital Design develops LLM specialized in financial market translation
  • Payments: Nudge begins offering official credit card for "HashPort Wallet"; freee adopts Authlete; 2025 GMO Customer Satisfaction Ranking - PayPay takes top spot in "Cashless Payment Apps" category; Digital Platformer and JPYC start joint study for business alliance between JPYC and regional financial institutions; how DeCurret is building the tokenised deposit model in Japan
  • Capital Markets: IG Securities to stop offering cryptocurrency ETF CFDs; the wealth effect of rising stock prices; the JSDA's "Fact Book 2025"
  • Asset Management: SBI Holdings to form active ETF management joint venture with AllianceBernstein
  • Digital Assets: Binance Japan and PayPay launch PayPay money integration service; PTS announces official launch of Pivotal Mining Note on Republic
  • The Last Word: Global Stocks Are Forecast to Return 7.7% Annually in Coming Decade

Venture Capital & Private Markets

  • Five years of UPSIDER & 100,000 client companies: on its 5th anniversary since business launch, UPSIDER's cumulative number of client companies has exceeded 100,000, and the cumulative transaction volume of its corporate card "UPSIDER" and invoice card payment service "Shiharai.com" has surpassed ¥1 trillion; in July, Mizuho acquired 70% of UPSIDER

New Funds

Not FinTech

Insurance

  • Tokio Marine acquires Agrihedge: Tokio Marine Holdings has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Agrihedge (Commodity & Ingredient Hedging, “CIH”) for USD970 Million (Approximately JPY150.0 Billion); the transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 (January to March 2026) subject to the receipt of regulatory approvals; CIH is a technology focused risk solutions firm which provides price volatility risk solutions for agricultural and livestock products to customers primarily in the U.S.—including agricultural producers, grain merchandisers, and other agribusiness clients—through insurance agency, derivatives brokerage, consulting and related offerings
  • Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance acquires stake in asset manager Barings: Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, a subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group, has agreed to acquire an 18% equity interest in Barings, an asset management company and wholly owned subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance (“MassMutual”), from MassMutual for a total investment of USD 1.44bn; this investment will also enable collaboration between MS&AD Group and Martello Re, a highly creditworthy reinsurance company where MassMutual is a key investor, and which has a partnership with Barings who currently manages a majority of their assets

Banking

  • MUFG Second Quarter Financial Results: as Japan's largest megabank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group occupies a central position in both the domestic and global financial landscape; the company's recent disclosure of strong half-year financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2026 provides a clear window into its current operational momentum and strategic progress; this analysis examines these results in detail, evaluates the company's upwardly revised full-year guidance and shareholder return policy, and assesses the key strategic initiatives intended to drive long-term value
  • SMFG Second Quarter Financial Results: SMFG has demonstrated not only resilience but solid operational momentum and significant financial outperformance; this has prompted an upward revision of its full-year forecast and provides a compelling basis for a deeper competitive evaluation; this outperformance merits a deeper evaluation of the firm's underlying financial health, its standing relative to global peers, and the strategic initiatives that will determine if this momentum is sustainable
  • Mizuho Second Quarter Financial Results: Mizuho Financial Group's results for the first half of fiscal year 2025 (FY25 H1) reveal a company operating with significant positive momentum; the strong performance, coupled with an upward revision of its full-year profit outlook and an aggressive stance on shareholder value, signals a confident and assertive strategy; these results are not merely cyclical; they reflect a deliberate transformation that presents a direct and accelerating challenge to competitors in the global financial landscape
  • SuMi TRUST Second Quarter Financial Results: during the first half of fiscal year 2025, Sumitomo Mitsui TRUST delivered an exceptional financial performance, culminating in a record-high net income; this robust result was driven by the successful execution of its strategy across three core pillars: strong growth in underlying business profit, a significant positive reversal in credit costs, and substantial gains realized from the strategic reduction of shareholdings; this outperformance provides a strong foundation for the significant upward revision of SuMi TRUST's full-year consolidated earnings and dividend forecasts
  • Japan Digital Design develops LLM specialized in financial market translation: Japan Digital Design (JDD) has developed a 70-billion parameter large language model (LLM) called "Llama-3.3-fintranslate-JDD-70b" specialized in translating financial market-related documents; in internal evaluations using actual business data, the model achieved performance exceeding global models such as GPT-4o; additionally, JDD plans to soon begin providing a translation application utilizing this model to MUFG Bank
  • The Bank of Japan has published "New Challenges for Monetary Policy"

Payments

  • Nudge begins offering official credit card for "HashPort Wallet": Nudge has partnered with HashPort, provider of the Web3 wallet "HashPort Wallet" chosen by 1 million people, to begin offering the "HashPort Card" through the next-generation credit card "Nudge"; with this card, JPYC (Japanese Yen stablecoin) is provided as cashback by HashPort according to usage amounts through everyday shopping, and customers can also enjoy an original design card
  • freee adopts Authlete: freee, which has been working on open APIs since 2015, was an early adopter of OAuth 2.0, an open standard for API access authorization, and has been implementing and operating its own OAuth 2.0 infrastructure; however, nearly 10 years after the launch, the rapid growth of its platform and app store has led to increased maintenance costs for its current authorization infrastructure, and scalability has become an issue; furthermore, it has become difficult to continually keep up with the latest OAuth 2.0 extension specifications and best practices
  • 2025 GMO Customer Satisfaction Ranking - PayPay takes top spot in "Cashless Payment Apps" category: GMO Research & AI, a GMO Internet Group company operating in the internet research business, has announced the ranking results for the "Cashless Payment Apps" category in the 2025 "GMO Customer Satisfaction Ranking"; in the overall ranking for this category, PayPay claimed first place; the service was recognized for its convenience of being usable almost anywhere and the ease of use of its app
  • Digital Platformer and JPYC start joint study for business alliance between JPYC and regional financial institutions: Digital Platformer and JPYC have commenced a joint study aimed at mutual cooperation between Japan's first Japanese Yen-pegged stablecoin "JPYC" and the deposit-backed token "Tochika," launched by Hokkoku Bank in April 2024, as well as the construction of a business alliance model with regional financial institutions; this initiative aims to promote the efficiency and digitalization of regional economies by fusing the highly reliable deposit and remittance infrastructure possessed by regional financial institutions with new financial infrastructure based on blockchain technology
  • How DeCurret is building the tokenised deposit model in Japan: in conversation at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2025, Mai Kaneko, international business lead at DeCurret DCP, outlines how DCJPY is shaping Japan’s regulated ecosystem for tokenised deposits, stablecoins and potential future CBDCs across domestic and cross-border financial activity

Capital Markets

  • IG Securities, the local arm of trading giant IG Group, is preparing to stop offering cryptocurrency ETF CFDs. The decision followed updated guidance from the FSA, which clarified how crypto ETF CFDs should be handled in a revised policy
  • In a recent note published in the Itochu Research Institute's Economic Monitor, Senior Economist Sota Takano investigates the wealth effect of rising stock prices in Japan: "Since entering October 2025, stock prices in the Japanese market have advanced. Although they softened slightly entering November, the Nikkei Stock Average maintains high growth on a year-on-year basis. This rise in stock prices increases the value of financial assets held by households, creating an effect that boosts personal consumption (the wealth effect). Estimating the magnitude of this wealth effect reveals a relationship where a 10% increase in the real value of financial assets leads to a 0.2% increase in real consumption expenditure. This implies that if the Nikkei Stock Average hovers around the 50,000 yen level toward the end of the year, real personal consumption for the October–December 2025 quarter will increase by 0.5%, or approximately 1.8 trillion yen in actual (nominal) annualized terms. Furthermore, in recent years, the benefits of the wealth effect have expanded from the elderly to the younger generation. Supported by this wealth effect, personal consumption is expected to maintain a recovery trend."
  • The Daiwa Institute of Research, as part of its coverage of ESG Investments, has published a report titled "How to Demonstrate the Link Between Non-Financial Information and Corporate Value: Challenges Revealed by Case Studies of Quantitative Analysis and Future Expectations"
  • The JSDA - Japan Securities Dealers Association has published its "Fact Book 2025"
  • Acuiti has published an interview with the Osaka Exchange's Kensuke Yazu
  • Schroders has published its "Economics Lens" for November 2025, including a dedicated (albeit short) Japan chapter

Asset Management

  • SBI Holdings to form active ETF management joint venture with AllianceBernstein: SBI Holdings has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with AllianceBernstein, one of the world’s leading active investment firms with more than 50 years of history, for the establishment of a joint venture company in Japan specializing in active ETF management; the ownership ratio for the Joint Venture Company is planned to be 51% for the SBI Holdings and 49% for the AB Group

Digital Assets

  • Binance Japan and PayPay launch PayPay money integration service: Binance Japan and PayPay have launched a PayPay Money integration service for Binance Japan's spot cryptocurrency trading; this service allows users to purchase cryptocurrencies through PayPay Money deposits and charge PayPay balance with PayPay Money from cryptocurrency sales proceeds; this integration service enables users to fund cryptocurrency purchases not only with PayPay Money but also with PayPay Points; additionally, by setting the point usage to "Use for payments" in the PayPay app in advance, users can combine PayPay Money and PayPay Points
  • PTS announces official launch of Pivotal Mining Note on Republic: Pivotal Trend Service has announced the official launch of its flagship digital asset product, PMN (Pivotal Mining Note), on Republic, marking a significant milestone for the global digital securities industry; PMN becomes the first Japan-originated Security Token Offering (STO) to be compliantly offered in the United States, and the first STO launched following Republic's recent acquisition of INX; designed as a compliant, Bitcoin-linked financial product, PMN aims to transform institutional-grade Bitcoin mining exposure into an accessible, transparent, and user-centric investment opportunity; built on long-term mining infrastructure and a regulated token framework, PMN provides investors with structured, real-economy Bitcoin production over a fixed 36-month term

The Last Word: Global Stocks Are Forecast to Return 7.7% Annually in Coming Decade

Despite their high valuations, Goldman Sachs Research forecasts global stocks to return 7.7% annually in US-dollar terms over the next decade.

The key structural drivers for stock performance include nominal GDP growth, profitability, and shareholder distributions, according to Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist in Goldman Sachs Research.

The long-term forecast for global stocks uses a common framework across regions, but also accounts for local drivers. The annual returns indicated by the model vary by region.

Article content
Source: Goldman Sachs

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