Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred twenty-seventh edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. Congratulations to the WebX & Coinpost teams for delivering an outstanding conference! Although SBI took the headlines with a full plate of announcements already on the Friday prior in Osaka, the news flow did not let up. More
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred twenty-sixth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. Quite the week in Japan, with the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD9), as well as the kick-off to Japan Blockchain Week with the WebX Fintech EXPO in Osaka. The former was dominated by SMBC making
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred twenty-fifth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. Chaos, chaos, everywhere! The subway line to the Osaka Expo 2025 broke down, leaving thousands of people stranded late into the night. McDonald's offered a Pokemon promotion, leading to piles of "Happy Meals" discarded
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred twenty-fourth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. The TOPIX reached a record high on August 8, 2025, hitting 3038.84 points during the regular session and closing at 3024.21. This was the first time TOPIX has broken 3000 points in its history. It closed
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Welcome to the one hundred twenty-third edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. Earnings season is in full swing, and there were plenty of announcements last week, so we would just like to draw your attention to the Japan Fair Trade Commission's guidelines for smartphone apps - coming into
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Welcome to the one hundred twenty-second edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. We have implemented our own, very personal "Don't buy American" policy, which might seem ironic, given that you are most likely to read this newsletter on LinkedIn, but we do offer a self-hosted version
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Welcome to the one hundred twenty-first edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. In Japan’s Upper House Elections, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party along with partner New Komeito lost its majority in the chamber. This marks the first since 1955 that the LDP-led government has fallen below a majority in
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Welcome to the one hundred twentieth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. There is a new chief in town. In a management roster published on July 8, the FSA lists Hiroyuki Natori as the Director of the Innovation Promotion Office and Chief FinTech Officer. In addition, the new position of
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred nineteenth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. With the last update on the Shunto wage negotiations behind, and the Upper House elections ahead of us, it is worth taking another look at the situation the average Japanese consumer finds herself in. In September 2022, we
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred eighteenth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. We are going to be a bit policy- and white paper-heavy this week. From a macro perspective, we have included the government's "Grand Design and Action Plan for a New Form of Capitalism, 2025 Revised
Weekly
Welcome to the - exceptionally late - one hundred seventeenth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. At the Monetary Policy Meeting held last week, the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan decided, by a unanimous vote, to set the following guideline for money market operations for the intermeeting period:
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred sixteenth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. We are back, and so is the Bank of Japan, with their June Monetary Policy Meeting. While a change in the policy rate is not expected, the Bank will update its plan for JGB purchases starting in April