Today, Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (President & Group CEO: Yasuhiro Sato), Mizuho Bank, Ltd. (President & CEO: Nobuhide Hayashi), Metaps Inc. (President: Katsuaki Sato, (Metaps)), and WiL LLC. (Co-Founder & CEO: Gen Isayama, (WiL)), formed a basic agreement to begin co-operation with a view to a business tie-up with the aim of utilizing FinTech to provide new payments services.

The tie-up between the four companies (Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, Metaps, and WiL) will bring together Mizuho’s customer base and expertise in financial services with Metaps’ data analysis technologies and online payments knowledge, and include support from WiL, a venture capital firm with an extensive network of cutting edge service providers, with the aim of creating and providing the following new payments services utilizing FinTech.

(1) Services designed especially for smartphones
Data suggests that approximately 70% of the Japanese population now own smartphones, and this is leading these devices into becoming the dominant medium for internet access. The aim of this initiative is to create a seamless payment service optimized for smartphones.

(2) Provision of the most suitable financial services through analysis of payments data
Analyzing payments data, such as statements of account activity, will help us to provide the most suitable financial services to our customers, and we hope to use data analysis technology to address many of our customers financial services needs. For example, in personal banking, data can be analyzed to offer personalized and detailed investments advice, while for corporate customers similar techniques can be used to support business expansion.

(3) Creation of new payments methods
In order to make banking more convenient for our customers, we are looking to utilize technologies such as blockchain to offer innovative payments solutions, giving them alternatives to credit cards and cash.

(4) Expanding into the Asian (ex Japan) market
We are considering the possibility of a world-wide launch for these new services. Specifically, we are aiming to provide localized services to the Asian market (ex Japan), where the payments sector is expected to grow over the coming years.

The four companies (Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, Metaps, and WiL) will explore the possibilities of primarily payments based FinTech services through the development of the above initiatives.