Fintech

On October 5, Japan’s NEC Corp. announced that it will purchase Swiss financial solutions provider Avaloq Group AG for CHF 2.05 billion (USD 2.25 billion), making it the biggest acquisition ever for NEC.

Students and professors at the University of Aizu in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, are getting a start on cashless payments of the future, using the new regional digital currency Byacco.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) is seeking foreign and Japanese financial companies and startups providing innovative solutions and services that meet the Tokyo citizens’ needs and challenges. The three financial institutes with the best products will be presented with the Tokyo Financial Award 2020 as well as money prizes totaling 18M JPY.

Japan plans to take most government paperwork online, streamlining cumbersome processes blamed for delayed payments of pandemic assistance, in an ambitious digital revolution it aims to complete in a year.

Japanese broker Nomura launched a wealth management smartphone app on Monday with Japanese fintech company Money Forward in its latest effort to go digital amid rising competition and the coronavirus pandemic.

Sony will make listed subsidiary Sony Financial Holdings a wholly owned unit for 400 billion yen ($3.73 billion) as it follows global tech giants Alibaba Group Holding and Apple in turning to finance as a stable profit generator that performs even during crises like the current pandemic, Sony announced Tuesday.

Small and midsize businesses in Japan are turning to financial technology startups for cash as the coronavirus crisis saps their earnings.

Remember Aibo, the computerized dog Sony Corp. started selling in 1999 as the first personal robot? Hiro Mizuno, the chief investment officer of the Government Pension Investment Fund, does. So he asked Sony’s computer science lab unit to build him a cyberhound using artificial intelligence to help oversee the external fund managers who manage GPIF’s ¥175 trillion ($1.6 trillion) in assets.

It’s a tantalizing prospect for traders whose success often hinges on microseconds: a desktop PC algorithm that crunches market data faster than today’s most advanced supercomputers.Toshiba Corp. says it has the technology to make such rapid-fire calculations a reality — not quite quantum computing, but perhaps the next best thing. The claim is being met with a mix of intrigue and skepticism at financial firms in Tokyo and worldwide.

Central banks in Japan, Europe and Canada are taking a joint look into issuing digital currencies in their home jurisdictions, hoping to offer a convenient and safe alternative to Facebook's Libra or the digital yuan.