KDDI bundles payments & financial services business in “au Financial Holdings”
As per today’s press release, KDDI will incorporate an intermediate financial holding company, “au Financial Holdings”, in order to strengthen its payments & financial services business. Another objective is to establish the “Smart Money Concept” which aims to provide comprehensive smartphone-centric payments and financial transactions.
KDDI will transfer five companies, namely Jibun Bank, which will become a KDDI subsidiary, as well as KDDI Financial Service, WebMoney, KDDI Asset Management, and KDDI Reinsurance, which are already KDDI subsidiaries, to the control of “au Financial Holdings” on April 1, 2019.
In addition, KDDI plans to unify the company names of the five companies under the control of “au Financial Holdings” as well as au Insurance Company and kabu.com Securities, which are members of the KDDI group, to names that include the au brand, during the current fiscal year.
Going forward, centering on “au WALLET”, KDDI plans to provide a one stop services to support customers’ activities pertaining to money, including savings, payments, and borrowing, among others. KDDI will expand the user base of the services of au ID, WALLET point, au WALLET application, and au PAY to customers who do not have au mobile phones during the second half of 2019.
In addition, KDDI announced a “FinTech Fund Program” as part of the “KDDI Open Innovation Fund №3” (“KOIF №3”), which is a joint venture with Global Brains and aims to invest approximately JPY 20bn (USD 200m) over a five year period.
If you found value in this article, please “clap” (up to 50 times).
This article is part of our Tokyo FinTech Publication, please follow us to read more from our writers, like hundreds of readers do every day. Should you live in Tokyo, or just pass through, please also join our Tokyo FinTech Meetup.
