SuMi Trust takes stake in PrivateBANK for HNI access
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank has taken an equity stake of less than 5% in PrivateBANK, which operates a multi-family office business for ultra-high net worth individuals (HNI) in Japan.
Background of the Alliance
Japan is facing a variety of social challenges, such as the arrival of a hyper-aged society, a decrease in the working-age population, and sluggish economic growth. The creation of innovation, such as new technological innovation and technological development, is necessary to solve these issues, and there are growing expectations for start-up companies to make great strides in this area.
The government, too, has positioned startups as agents of a sustainable economic society by transforming social challenges into engines of growth, and has formulated a “Five-Year Plan for Startup Development” to accelerate entrepreneurship and promote growth, and in addition to strengthening funding and promoting open innovation, it has also adopted a number of measures to foster entrepreneurs. In addition to strengthening funding and promoting open innovation, the plan also includes a number of measures to nurture entrepreneurs.
According to a survey by Nomura Research Institute, as of 2021, there were about 1.5m households with net financial assets of at least JPY 100m. Of these, 1.4m households with assets of less than JPY 500m had income of JPY 259trn, while 90,000 households with assets of more than JPY 500m earned JPY 105trn. This is the demographic that SuMi Trust targets with this investment, while other financial groups, such as MUFG or Nomura are increasing their staff numbers in wealth management for HNIs.
Outline and Purpose of the Alliance
As a trust group, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank is taking on the challenge of enlarging the overall economic and social pie by playing the role of a social infrastructure that creates a virtuous cycle of funds, assets, and capital. In particular, SuMi Trust believes that the growth of start-up companies that contribute to solving social issues is particularly important for the sustainable growth of the Japanese economy, and aims to support not only start-up companies but also the expansion of the overall market through our corporate solutions, asset management and asset administration business, and other businesses we have developed.
PrivateBANK, as a company that operates a multi-family office business for ultra-high-net-worth individuals in Japan, provides asset management services for financial assets, real estate, private equity, and other assets of several ultra-high-net-worth families, as well as a wide range of concierge services that have earned it a high reputation among extremely busy founders & corporate executives.
Through this alliance, SuMi Trust’s strengths in corporate solutions, such as stock transfer agency and financing, and PrivateBANK’s strengths in solutions such as concierge services that provide total support for the private lifes of executives will be combined to better meet the needs of companies, including start-ups, and their executives. Furthermore, through collaboration between the two companies, new products and solutions for wealthy individuals will be developed, and the foundation for asset management, asset administration, and social contribution enhanced.
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. Please also register for our short weekly digest, the “Japan FinTech Observer”, on Medium or on LinkedIn.
Should you live in Tokyo, or just pass through, please also join our Tokyo FinTech Meetup. In any case, our YouTube channel and LinkedIn page are there for you as well.
