Welcome to the — exceptionally late — one hundred seventeenth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer.

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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: The Bank will encourage the uncollateralized overnight call rate to remain at around 0.5 percent. The next Bank of Japan Monetary Policy Meeting will take place on July 30 & 31.

The Bank also published its “Plan for the Reduction of the Purchase Amount of JGBs”; for the period from April 2026 to March 2027, the pace of reduction in the amount of JGB purchases by the Bank of Japan will be reduced from JPY 400bn to JPY 200bn per quarter, thus resulting in monthly purchases of JPY 2.1trn by the end of this period.

In addition to the Monetary Policy Meeting, the Bank of Japan has also submitted its semi-annual “Report on Currency and Monetary Control” to the Diet, comprising coverage of the economic and financial situation, monetary policy conduct and monetary policy tools, as well as the content of decisions made at the monetary policy meeting.

This week’s policy highlight is the 55th General Meeting of the Financial System Council and the 43rd Joint Meeting of the Financial System Subcommittee, held today (Wednesday), which includes “the status of the system surrounding crypto assets” on its agenda — ultimately discussing the alignment of crypto and securities law, including taxation.

Here is what we are going to cover this week:

Venture Capital & Private Markets: Techfino, a FinTech non-banking financial company, has secured investment from Saison Capital; MS&AD Insurance Group has established its JPY 10bn 2025 vintage fund; Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation has entered into an investment agreement with AN Venture Partners I; Mizuho has collaborated with lending financial institutions including Orix Bank and Joyo Bank to form a long-term private fund with agri-solar power plantsInsurance: Neo First Life Insurance, a member of the Dai-ichi Life Group, announced a new AI-based system that detects potential fraudulent insurance claims earlyBanking: the National Police Agency and eight city banks and other financial institutions signed an “Information Sharing Agreement” to combat fraudPayments: Japan will require banks and credit card companies to use IC chip-based identity verification for non-face-to-face account openings starting in April 2027; LifeCard has partnered with personalization innovator Pulse iD to launch a new generation of credit cards; Simplex has launched its stablecoin issuance and redemption system “Simplex Stablecoin”Capital Markets: Kraken Digital Asset Exchange and Alpaca have partnered to expand crypto trading access; social trading app Woodstock started offering after-hours trading services for US stocks; KBRA, a global full-service credit rating agency, is opening a Tokyo OfficeAsset Management: Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, SMBC Nikko Securities, and Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company, together with SBI Holdings and SBI Securities, will jointly create new asset management services for OliveDigital Assets: Coincheck has entered into a strategic partnership with MynaWallet, a company providing a web3 wallet solution utilizing the Japanese government-issued My Number CardThe Last Word: Japan’s long working hours