Group Chief Digital Innovation Officer, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG)
Senior Managing Executive Officer and Head of Digital Solution Division, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC)
Senior Managing Director, Digital Company and Retail Division Marketing of Nomura Holdings Inc.
Senior Managing Director of Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.
Three fintechs from the UK aiming to enter the Japanese market will introduce their technology and adbvanced solutions.
Symposium Demo Stage: YOUTRUST Accelerate Fintech business! How can you recruit Digital Talents?
YOUTRUST" is a Japanese career social networking service based on trustworthy connections where people can get information, job and connections that could open up your future possibilities. Its cumulative total of users is over 200,000 including 20s and 30s who are active in the digital domain such as engineers, project managers/directors and business developers. YOUTRUST also provides corporate clients a HR Tech SaaS solution, which is based on the uniqueness as a social networking service where there are users changing jobs potentially in addition to those looking for a new job at the moment.
G.U.Technologies Scalability and potential of stable coins and Web3 business to be fused with Japan Open Chain (JOC)
Future of wholesale payments powered by Bank of Japan
The recent years have seen emerging initiatives aimed at enhancing wholesale payments through incorporating novel technologies. Alongside this, when looking at settlement assets used for payments, new forms of money are also being explored. The three consecutive sessions, with a focus on wholesale payments, encompass such key topics as the course of developments in this area, the emergence of new forms of money, and challenges of the current practice. Of these, the panel discussions bring together business leaders, industry experts, and academics to illustrate the future landscape of the wholesale payments ecosystem.
Solo Lecture:Wholesale payments: past, present and future
Panel:Wholesale payments: challenges of the current practice
Inviting business leaders and industry experts who closely engage in and tackle challenges facing the current practice of wholesale payments, this interactive discussion addresses pain points of the current practice and explores ongoing efforts to enhance wholesale payments as well as remaining issues to be overcome in moving forward with such efforts.
Panel:Future of wholesale payments
What are possible approaches to enhancing incumbent wholesale payment infrastructures? Looking further ahead, what would be the opportunities and challenges of emerging infrastructures? Delving into such topics in view of implications brought forth by technological innovations and external factors, this panel offers a high-level discussion aimed at illustrating the future landscape of the wholesale payments ecosystem, reflecting diverse perspectives from the business and public sectors as well as from the academia.
Part 1:Digital financial strategy of Mitsui & Co
Part 2:The future of crypto payments
Mitsui & Co. Digital Commodities issues the crypto "Zipangcoin" which aims to be linked to gold in Japan. We are considering using it for remittance and payment in the future, but there are issues with the convenience of current crypto compared to other payment. This time, we will have a panel discussion on crypto and stablecoin as payment with crypto asset exchange companies that has a payment service within own group.
Impact Pitch
Selected 10 startups make their final pitches at the event venue, with a focus on solving global social problems and expanding into the global marketplace. These pitches will be presented to a worldwide audience.
Startup Showcase
Startups that unfortunately were not selected as impact pitch finalists, but are particularly ambitious and have high expectations for growth, will present their presentations.
DX society pioneered by the DCJPY network, a Digital currency powered by DeCurret DCP Inc.
We will introduce by 4 sessions to explain what exactly digital currency is and how it can be used for social DX and economic development. The session includes a theme launching soon in this July, also the future possibility when the use of digital currency expands widely to the enterprises.
Part 1:Digitalization of Environmental values
We will introduce the first commercial use of Tokenized Deposit DCJPY and the environmental value tokens, including the topic why we're using digital currency and why it is used for environmental value transactions.
Part 2:Concept envisioned by Digital Securities and DCJPY
We will discuss what "digital securities" and "security tokens" are, which we frequently see these days. Also the characteristics and advantages of self-offering through digital securities, and new fundraising initiatives.
Part 3:Enterprise application for DCJPY and NFT
We will discuss the business opportunities for SMEs by using digitally stored transaction data and SBT (Soul Bound Token) or NFT (Non-Fungible Token).
Part4:DCJPY Network brings DX Innovation in Commercial transaction
The Digital Currency Forum will begin discussions at the Invoice Chain subcommittee, where accounting systems, ERP, EDI companies, and businesses will gather to build a DX platform for commercial transactions. The workshop will cover the background and future vision of the initiative, aiming for innovation in the business transactions.
Yuka IwasakiCEO, YOUTRIST Co., Ltd.
After graduating from the Faculty of Science at Osaka University, she joined DeNA Co., Ltd. in 2012 as a recruitment officer.
In 2016, she was assigned to its subsidiary, Peroli, Inc. in the corporate planning department.
In December 2017, she founded YOUTRUST, Inc.
Tomohiro SugoHead of Payment and Settlement Systems Division, Bank of Japan
Tomohiro Sugo is Head of Bank of Japan's Payment and Settlement Systems Division in the Payment and Settlement Systems Department. He covers a range of payment and settlement, including wholesale settlement, cross-border payments and central bank digital currency. Before that he worked as a senior economist in the Research and Statistics Department as well as the Monetary Affairs Department. He was engaed in the analyses of the economic and price developments, including big data analysis.
Satoru Someya Executive Officer and COO and CMO and Head of Marketing and Sales Dept.
TradeWaltz Inc.
He started his career at Mitsubishi Corporation in 2010. He has engaged in projects for global trading systems and supported launching a trading subsidiary. He also has experience as a bridge engineer in India and as an investor in digital startups. In recent years, he has been responsible for digital transformation in business industries at the headquarters of Mitsubishi Corporation and was sent to TradeWaltz Inc. as a Managing Director in 2020.
With a strong passion in international activities and blockchain, he served as a Discussion Coordinator for the Japan-ASEAN Youth Leaders Summit, a cultural exchange program organized by the Cabinet Office for 5 years since 2011, served as a lead organizer of blockchain 2.0 meetup community in 2018, served as a member of the Japan Trade Facilitation and E-Business Committee, ICC Japan and Study Group on the State of Digitalization in the Trade Sector, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from 2021. He served as Japan's representative to the Entrepreneurship World Cup in 2022.
Masayuki TagaiManaging Director, Industry Issues, Payments,
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Tokyo Branch
Masayuki (Mike) Tagai is responsible for payment global standards and market practice development in Asia Pacific through the interaction with relevant industry associations, market infrastructures and public policy authorities.
He has been representing Japan at the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group (RMG) and has been elected Convenor in March 2021. He is a member of the BAFT Asia Council and represents Japan at the PMPG. As Convenor of the RMG, he is focused on making ISO 20022 approachable, understandable and more usable so the full potential of ISO 20022 is realized to solve for real life problems the market faces.
Fernando VazquezCEO, SBI Digital Asset Holdings
Fernando’s career began in academia where he first became deeply involved with the budding Linux community in the early 90s. This led him to the corporate world with a number of roles at the NTT Group starting in 2003, where he contributed to the mainstreaming of open source. He transitioned into the FinTech world, joining Japanese financial conglomerate SBI in 2016. He became CEO of SBI Digital Asset Holdings in July 2020, where he is leading its digital asset strategy and digital business' global expansion. He is also a member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore's International Technology Advisory Panel.
Masashi WatanabeMitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.
Shuji KobayakawaProfessor, School of Political Science and Economics, Meiji University
Shuji was Deputy Director-General of Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank of Japan. Currently, he is a member of the Ministy of Finance's Expert Panel on CBDC. He is also an auditor of Japanese Banks' Payment Clearing Network (Zengin-Net), a board member of Japan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchange Association, and an auditor of Japan Association for Financial APIs. He holds D.Phil and M.Phil from the University of Oxford.
Akio IsowaGroup Chief Digital Innovation Officer, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG)
Senior Managing Executive Officer and Head of Digital Solution Division, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC)
After joining the SMBC, Akio Isowa was engaged in corporate business, legal affairs, corporate planning, human resources management before establishing Retail Marketing Department and IT Strategy Department as the General Manager. He also led the debit card business, the UX project of the internet banking application. As the head of Transaction Business Division, he led product and sales planning for online payment services such as Bank Pay and COTORA. Since 2023, he is leading digital innovation of the SMBC Group as the Chief Digital Innovation Officer.
Hajime TomuraProfessor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University
Hajime Tomura is a professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University. He specializes in macroeconomics, monetary theory, and payment systems. Prior to joining Waseda University, he worked at the Bank of Canada and taught at Hokkaido University and the University of Tokyo, and was an expert member of the Japanese government's Financial System Council for 2014-19. He received a PhD in Economics from the University of London and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Tokyo.
Naomi TakedaDirector-General, Payment and Settlement Systems Department, Bank of Japan
Mr. Takeda is a member of CPMI (Committee of Payments and Market Infrastructures) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which is the international standard setting body for payment, clearing, settlement and related arrangements.
He has an experience in designing the upgrading of Japan’s RTGS system and establishing DVP for securities settlement as well as in developing the New BOJNet. He is currently working on the future of payment system from the perspective of digital currency, cross-border payments and risk management of Financial Market Infrastructures.
Noriyuki YanagawaProfessor, Faculty of Economics,
University of Tokyo
Noriyuki Yanagawa received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo. After serving as Associate Professor at Keio University, joined the Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo as Associate Professor in 1996. Has been Professor in 2011. He also serves as an expert member of Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Japanese Government, Member of Council for the Realization of a New Form of Capitalism, Chief of Center for Real Estate Innovation(CREI), the University of Tokyo, Representative of Fintech Research Forum at the Center for Advanced Research in Finance (CARF), the University of Tokyo.
Daisuke IshidaManaging Officer, Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Development Business Unit, Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Joined Mitsui & Co., Ltd. In 1992.
Developed career in import/export of general merchandize, venture/growth investment, healthcare and corporate planning prior to becoming the COO of Corporate Development Business Unit which covers Financial, Real Estate, Logistics and new business development in 2022. Currently leading digital finance business including security token and crypto currency business.
Yusuke YoneyamaCOO and Director,LINE Xenesis Corporation
LINE Xenesis Corporation, which operates LY Corporation's crypto asset businesses, strives to create WOWs with new services that combine both the crypto asset and blockchain businesses.
In graduate school, Yusuke Yoneyama majored in financial engineering. After graduating, he worked on system planning related to domestic security transfers and secured trading at Japan Trustee Services Bank (now Custody Bank of Japan). From there, he carried out trading and overall settlement-related business planning at a major asset management company.
In 2019, he joined LVC Corporation (now LINE Xenesis Corporation) and has been in office since January 2023.
Haruhiko Matsui launched his career at Aurther Andersen/Andersen Consulting in 1991. With 30 years in IT/Business consulting, he founded Arrows Consulting in 1996, led EY Advisory Japan as CEO in 2012, established GrowShip Partners in 2016, and established OwnerShip in 2021. He drives FinTech innovations in "investment crowdfunding," "digital securities," and "embedded finance.。
Hikaru KusakaxID Inc.
Born in 1988. Founded xID Co., Ltd. in 2012. Moved to the Republic of Estonia, known for its e-government, in 2017, serving as an advisor for eResidency and government agencies. Appointed as a director of the General Incorporated Association Digital Identity Promotion Consortium in August 2022. Established the General Incorporated Association Govtech Association in November 2022 and serves as its co-representative director. Advisor for regional informatization at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2023. Fellow of Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Smart City Promotion Advisor for Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Katsutoshi MatsushitaExecutive Officer, SMBC Venture Capital
Katsutoshi Matsushita manages investment division in SMBC Venture Capital with 10 years of experience as a capitalist.
Also, he engaged in Corporate Sales Department in SMBC since 2000 to 2007, and IPO Supporting in SMBC Nikko Securities since 2013 to 2020.
With his experiences in equity finance and corporate finance, he has led 9 companies to IPO as a venture capitalist, and supported 11 companies’ IPOs as an investment banker.
Yoshio SakaiUnit Leader, Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd.
Project Manager, Research Center for Industry Alliances
Akihisa TaketaChief Manager, Nippon Life Insurance Company
Joined Nippon Life Insurance Company in 2007. Fifteen years of experience in finance/lone division, including support for sales to small‐to‐medium‐sized enterprises, sales to large corporations, and project finance administration. After that, moved to Innovation Development Department, aka Nippon Life X, in 2022 and is currently responsible for research and investment in Japanese startups.
Shota MatsuzawaCo-founder, Decima Fund
Web3.0 Business Expert, Digital Agency Japan Government
Selected 10 startups make their final pitches at the event venue, with a focus on solving global social problems and expanding into the global marketplace. These pitches will be presented to a worldwide audience.
Keita SekiguchiFintech Editor ,Nikkei Inc.
Daimei InabaFounder, Japan Open Chain
CEO, G.U.Technologies Inc.
Graduated from the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, and completed the Financial Strategy Course (MBA), Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University.
After working as a corporation at a major commercial bank, he was in charge of credit risk model/AI development and solution planning and development for banks at The Risk Data Bank of Japan, Ltd. In recent years, he has been engaged in the development and provision of account information dynamic analysis solutions.
Participated in 2020 G.U.Labs.
Hirokuni OnozawaGMO Aozora Net Bank, Ltd
Executive Officer
Group Head
Sales and Marketing Group
Hirokuni Onozawa is responsible for the Strategy and Development Group as an executive officer in 2019.
Currently, he oversee the Marketing & Sales department.
Earlier in his career, Hirokuni developed technical skill as a system engineer at IBM Japan. He got experienced international assignment to IBM corporation in 2007 and deeply engaged in sales of a big US financial group and Financial solution planning. After returning to IBM Japan, proven success in service delivery of a mega bank and regional bank.
In 2013, he was appointed a Director of IBM Japan and the Vice President in 2017, where he led business development in the outsourcing business.
Yoshikzu, YamaiManaging Executive Officer, Director or Infrastructure Engineering Division, Internet Initiative Japan Inc.
President, IIJ Engineering Inc.
After working at several companies, joined IIJ in June 1999. He was seconded to Crosswave Communications and engaged in wide area LAN service planning and data center construction. After returning to his post in June 2004, he mainly directed the construction and operation of support departments and service facilities. At the same time, he was in charge of IIJ's data center business, building container-type data centers and data centers that achieved efficient power consumption. In April 2021, he concurrently served as IIJ Engineering Representative Director and President, to this day.
Kazuhiro TokitaSenior Managing Excutive Officer and Business Management, DeCurret DCP Inc.
Kazuhiro Tokita joined Internet Initiative Japan in 1995. He developed online trading systems for Japan's first online securities company. He continued to oversee all aspects of the financial systems business, including the provision of Internet securities, foreign exchange margin trading systems, and security platforms. 2005 Director, 2012 Senior Managing Executive Officer Appointed as Director, 2012 Senior Managing Executive Officer In 2017, he worked on the launch of the digital currency business as Director of the Digital Currency Business Preparation Office.
Established DeCurret in January 2018, DeCurret DCP took over the digital currency business in February 2022, he is the Senior Managing Executive Officer of DeCurret DCP from April 2022.
Hiromi YamaokaBoard Director, Future Corporation
Chairperson, Digital Currency Forum
Hiromi Yamaoka assumed various positions in the Bank of Japan, including the Director-General of Markets Department and the Director-General of Payment and Settlement Systems Department. He also served as the Alternate Executive Director for Japan in the International Monetary Fund, the Member of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, the Member of the Markets Committee, the Member of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure (CPMI) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). He is now serving as the chairperson of the Digital Currency Forum, which consists of leading companies and mega-banks in Japan.
Kaoru NumataSenior Managing Director, Digital Company and Retail Division Marketing of Nomura Holdings Inc.
Senior Managing Director of Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.
Kaoru Numata serves as Senior Managing Director, Digital Company and Retail Division Marketing of Nomura Holdings Inc. since 2022. Prior to this, he joined Nomura Securities in 2010 after 23 year-experience in Nomura Research Institute and was appointed as Co-Global Wholesale CIO(London) of Nomura Securities in 2014. Starting with that, he has been serving key roles across Nomura Group till today, as Senior Managing Director/CIO of Nomura Holdings in 2016, Senior Corporate Managing Director, Business Infrastructure of Nomura Asset Management in 2019, and Senior Managing Director, Future Innovation Company of Nomura Holdings in 2021.
Eiji KobayashiSecuritize Japan
Country Head, Japan
Eiji Kobayashi is Country Head of Securitize Japan K.K., the leading global platform for issuing digital securities. Eiji started his investment banking career in Wall Street for nearly 4 years, including at Merril Lynch Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs. In Tokyo, he worked at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. He then took leadership F4roles at American Express, Mastercard, Western Union and a German insurtech company. Eiji joined Securitize in February 2020. Eiji has an A.B. degree in Mathematical Economics from Brown University and M.B.A from The University of Chicago. Eiji was appointed as Director of Japan Security Token Association in August 2022. Member of the Executive Committee at Securitize, Inc.
Noritaka OeHead of Co-Creation Planning Department,
DAIDO LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY
Noritaka Oe joined Daido Life in 1994.
In the Sales Planning Department, he was responsible for developing sales support portals, data analysis and a health management support platform for small and medium-sized enterprises.
From 2018, he led company's innovation through technology research, networking with startups and digital transformation, as Head of the Co-creation Planning Department.
Kei Fukuta has over 20 years experience as a system engineer at Hitachi, Ltd. He dealt with various kinds of business application systems including banking system, supply chain system and so on. In his career, he worked for Hitachi America and Hitachi China to research on trends of business systems and to conduct new solution businesses.
In 2018, he established Blockchain Solution Dept. in Hitachi. And now, he is in charge of planning and providing new solutions related to Blockchain.。
Yoshio HirakoExecutive Officer, CDO, MIROKU JYOHO SERVICE CO., LTD. (MJS)
CEO, MJS Finance & Technology Inc.
Yoshio Hirako joined Mega-bank after graduating from university. After working for a Internet start-up, he led a project to establish a bank for a major distribution company. After serving as a director of a bank and a card company of a major distribution company group, he launched a Fintech company in 2013 as a vice president. He also joined a commercial bank in Indonesia as a director, and restructing of the crypto asset exchanger's management as a president. 2017 he became president of MJS Finance & Technology, a subsidiary of MJS, and from 2021 he will be the executive director and chief digital officer of MJS. He also serves on the board of directors of subsidiaries and investee digital and Blockchain-related companies.
Yosuke HayamaDirector, DeCurret DCP Inc.
Yosuke Hayama joined the IIJ Group in 2015 after working in sales, business development and capital markets at Sumitomo Bank, Reuters Japan and GE Japan. In 2017, he was engaged in digital solution research, start-up/venture collaboration/investment planning, including blockchain, at IIJ Financial Systems Business Division, FinTech Promotion Office Manager, before joining the DeeCaretto establishment PJ. Currently, he is appointed as Director overseeing the creation and deepening of business opportunities with alliance companies (current position).
Keita NakamuraCEO, Mercoin, Inc.
Keita joined Mercari’s research and development organization—known as R4D—as an intern. Upon graduating from university in 2018, he joined Mercari full time as a blockchain engineer and was involved in the MercariX project at R4D. Keita then moved to Merpay, where he served as a PM on teams working on distributed ledger development, AML systems, and credit design. In April 2021, he moved to Mercoin as the director of the Product Division. After working as Chief Product Officer, he assumed his current role as Representative Director, Chief Executive Officer of Mercoin in April 2023. Starting in January 2024, he assumed a concurrent role as Vice President, Chief Product Officer (Japan Region).