TOKYO — Japan plans to relax investment rules to make it easier for banks to take stakes in fintech firms, hoping to spur the lending sector to drop its outdated business model and embrace new technologies crucial to future growth.
While top IT companies at home and abroad, such as Amazon.com, make inroads into financial services, Japanese banks face various restrictions in offerings noncore services.
Bank holding companies currently need Financial Services Agency approval to acquire an interest of greater than 15% in nonfinancial companies. The government plans to ease this requirement so that banks will simply have to report their investments in fintech companies to the FSA, instead of receiving approval in advance. Read more…
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