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Welcome to the one hundred twenty-sixth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer.
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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 a slate of partnership announcements on the continent, the latter by SBI Holdings making a series of coordinated announcements SBI to unveil a multi-faceted strategy to build and dominate the next generation of digital finance.
Here is what we are going to cover this week:
Venture Capital & Private Markets: Shoko Chukin Bank provides JPY 100m in debt financing to COUNTERWORKS; MUFG Innovation Partners participate in Relcu’s funding round; SBI leads DigiFT’s strategic round to scale institutional-grade RWA infrastructure; AND Global secures USD 21.4m Series B led by IFC and AEON Financial Service; Uncovered Fund & Monex Ventures launch USD 20m Africa Fund; SMBC has made an investment in the Novastar Ventures Africa People and Planet Fund IIIBanking: Seven Bank commences capital & business alliance discussions with ITOCHU Corporation; SBI resumes regional bank partnerships, to acquire up to 3% of Tohoku Bank; SMBC unveils a comprehensive strategy for Africa’s future at TICAD9; SMBC has secured approval from the Reserve Bank of India to acquire up to 24.99% of YES BANK; Finastra completes the first-ever Loan IQ deployment in JapanPayments: SBI revealed a comprehensive, three-part strategy to ensure the availability and circulation of best-in-class stablecoins in Japan: partnerships with Circle, Ripple, and SMBC; Simplex and Ava Labs conduct joint verification of next-generation remittance and settlement networkCapital Markets: the future of Crypto ETFs in JapanDigital Assets: SBI Holdings has announced a strategic joint venture with Startale Group to develop and launch a comprehensive on-chain trading platform focused on tokenized stocks and real-world assets (RWAs); connecting the vision for tokenized assets with the stablecoin strategy is “Project Trinity,” a major proof-of-concept initiative to modernize Japan’s security token market: an impressive consortium of eight leading financial and technology firms — including SMBC, Daiwa Securities, SBI Securities, Osaka Digital Exchange (ODX), SBI R3 Japan, BOOSTRY, Progmat, and Datachain — has officially launched the projectThe Last Word: Techstars Tokyo 2025
AloJapan.com