SBI Holdings, Inc. (TYO:8473)
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May 14, 2026, 3:30 PM JST
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Earnings Call: Q4 2022

May 27, 2022

Yoshitaka Kitao
Representative Director, Chairman, President, and CEO, SBI Holdings Inc.

Thank you very much for joining us today at this SBI Holdings earnings announcement. Today, we have participants on site, and those remotely attending this meeting. The total of about 160 attending this meeting. So we would like to take two hours or so to explain about the results. As to the numbers which have been already announced. The revenue, JPY 763.68 billion, or up 41.1% year-on-year. The pre-tax profit, JPY 412.724 billion, up 194%. Profit for the period, JPY 355.724 billion, or up 264.8%.

Profit attributable to owners of the company, JPY 366.854 billion, up 352.4%. ROE 49.4%. Year-on-year, up 33.4 points. The order numbers are record highs. We renewed the numbers, record high in the previous year. Two consecutive years we renewed record highs. Of course, these numbers are on the consolidation using or the reflecting Shinsei Bank's numbers. Some of the gain on negative goodwill and the periodic profit from January to March 2022 are reflected. The full-year profit is going to be incorporated from the year to end in March 2023. This is the comparison with Nomura Holdings, Daiwa Securities Group Inc., and SMBC Nikko Securities, apples-to-apples comparison for three years.

Other companies are struggling year on year, that they decreased the numbers. Only SBI Holdings recorded positive growth. The negatives are the goodwill and the gain on negative goodwill, or the January to March the profits of Shinsei Bank, excluding all that, what were our results? This page shows that the revenue up 29.1%, JPY 698.685 billion. Pre-tax income exceeding the JPY 200 billion. Even without Shinsei, it was over JPY 200 billion, up 42.6%. Very good growth. The profit for the period up 52.3%, JPY 148.516 billion. Profit attributable to owners of the company exceeding JPY 130 billion, and ROE 20.8%.

With or without Shinsei Bank, our results were pretty good. Fiscal year 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 pre-tax income. For the FY 2019, there's the shock of the COVID and we had some dip as other companies did. But from there, we made a very strong growth. The profit level has been increasing over the five years. Then the Shinsei Bank's numbers were added. That's significant. That's what the FY 2021. Under such circumstances, reflecting our good results, we were upgraded by one notch. A- for SBI Holdings, SBI Securities, A. The SBI Savings Bank in Korea was upgraded to A from A-. That means that our funding cost will go down further.

Even when the interest rate goes up, we will not have such impact for our funding activities. That is for fiscal year which has ended. What about this new fiscal year? What is our business outlook? Why we have this business outlook for this single year for FY 2022? Because we are at the changing time. In the U.S., interest rate is coming up. In Europe, it's following the suit. Only in Japan, the interest rate that is not raised yet, but weak yen continues that will, give, damage, on, the whole economy. It's just a question of time that the Japan interest rate will start to go up as well.

Such changes in the interest rate market and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The global economy is changing or shifting from globalism to more divided, not necessarily block economy, but more divided. Of course, when it comes to trade, that will be bad news, but impact. In China, the COVID-19 situation, Omicron, that is, seems to be spreading, and the Chinese government is taking zero-COVID strategy, and that will have impact, significant impact on its economy. Such extraordinary factors exist for the year to end in March 2023. We should be flexible in our business strategies. What kind of business strategies do we have to take? Basically, sustainable and a stable growth should be in our minds, and we should be more focused on that under current circumstances. For fiscal year 2022 is the current focus on this page.

What about fiscal year 2023 or for the year ending in March 2024? The situation might change when the economy slows down globally. There is a possibility, I think, that the interest hike will stop, and that will change the business operating environment. These four things listed here will be the central part of our thinking. Strengthen profitability through allocating business resources to banking and nonbanking segments in anticipation of rising interest rates. Two, powerfully promote diversification of products in business areas in M&A strategy in order to realize new securities initiatives as early as possible. Number three, further accelerate overseas business development to utilize arbitrage based on differences in economic development stages. Number four, reevaluate the business segment in view of problems with the current segment and future business development. These four things have been decided.

Naturally, when the interest rate goes up, the equity market is on a downward trend. There's a shift from equity to debt and loan. If we stick too much to the equity for too long, there are so many unicorns now, lots of profit was generated, it just happened. You might have happened to invest in these entities, but, the, such age is gone. We need to have a clear understanding of shift happening. The Dow Jones is coming down when the FRB started to raise interest rates, and the Nikkei, that is following Dow coming down as well. What about strengthening profitability through allocating business resources to banking and nonbanking segments in anticipation of rising interest rates? Expanding the weight of debt business in anticipation of a shift away from a zero interest rate policy in the future.

For example, this is T ier 1 regional banks, interest rate goes up. This red part or brown part is interest rate, and then the net operating profit of the regional bank goes up, of course. It does. When the interest rate goes down, the operating profit goes down. This is for regional banks. What about T ier 2 regional banks? The trend is more extreme. Probably in June and July, the 0.5%, the rate hikes could happen again respectively in two consecutive months. In Europe, the ECB president said that the interest rate could be hiked in July.

Mr. Kuroda is insisting that the rates will not be raised in Japan, but his term will come to its end in the near future, and the rates will also be raised in Japan as well. Why are banking and nonbanking business promising going forward? We are anticipating this shift, and our next move will be the indicator, the total asset, JPY 22 trillion for SBI Group, both at home and abroad. JPY 24 trillion for Concordia and Mebuki, JPY 24.1 trillion. Based on that, silently, but leading the way, we have had anticipation. Those accumulated assets, of course, Shinsei Bank, when we look at Shinsei Bank from January to March period, that's the responsibility of the previous management, and that we will make some adjustments.

We did make some adjustments. From now on, we are coming into the stage where we generate profits. SBI Savings Bank pre-tax income JPY 38.9 billion, and we have almost 100% stake in this entity in Korea. In Cambodia and Vietnam, that's an extreme case, JPY 32.1 billion last year. For this year, probably close to the JPY 45 billion or more than that pre-tax profit will be generated. When we look at dividend to be received, about JPY 15 billion of dividend will be received. The future focus of equity market is not the point anymore. Predictable with a certain probability that we can predict the level of profit and dividend that we receive. When it comes to management, you need to see ahead, look ahead, and take necessary actions.

Based on an anticipation, we made moves. Some people said that, "Then why do you have to make investments in regional banks?" The living in the negative interest rate environment, and it is in that environment that we invested in those regional banks. It was rather cheap, and it's very likely that those entities will improve their performance. SBI Savings Bank in Korea, in buying this bank in 2013, delinquency rate was 51.6%. I was criticized so much when I decided to buy this bank. "It's stupid," they said. In my opinion, it was a good timing to buy this bank. Why? Look at the lending rates, 13.41% of the savings banks. It used to be like 20%.

The commercial bank, 3.98%, about 4%. The delinquency rate continued to come down now to 1.38%, and the performing loans increase, of course there are profits. Since this acquisition, revenue and profit continued to increase, and we enjoyed that trend. This is the bank in Vietnam. Because of the legal constraints, we wanted to buy more, but it should be less than 20% by foreign investor, our stake is 19.9%. Already, the more than JPY 200 billion valuation, listed in Ho Chi Minh exchange. Their performance is getting improved. In Southeast Asia, I want to buy more assets, non-bank and banking assets. If there are good deals, we will be interested.

To be prepared for the next move, you buy when the price is inexpensive and develop the entity into profitable ones. That's my basic understanding. I mean, it's my basic thinking. Shinsei Bank had a very good purchase. It's a rare case of good purchase. The largest non-bank in New Zealand, UDC Finance Limited, this is a very good company. Auto loan, retail, and corporate, the asset-backed financing. And they have been increasing the profits. Now Shinsei Bank is part of our group, and we need to have more M&As of this type. JPY 50 billion becoming JPY 70 billion. If we stay on that level, it would be difficult to pay back JPY 300 billion. We need to think big. If you cannot buy it on your own, you can cooperate with some other entity to buy it together.

For example, in Australia, it's a good company. Our investment ratio is only 10% Latitude, bought by Shinsei. MB Shinsei Finance in Vietnam, 49% investment ratio. In Cambodia, it's going to establish a new bank. The investment in such entity is important to make profits.

To achieve sustainable growth of the SBI Group, thoroughly utilize the Shinsei Bank Group's customer base banking and non-banking functions. When I talk to you, how to improve Shinsei Bank, that is the main focus. From now on, it's about SBI Group as a whole, how to utilize Shinsei Bank's management resources or assets to make the whole group better, and that will ultimately improve Shinsei Bank as well. That is the perspective that we need. That should be well understood by the executives of Shinsei Bank. By improving the group itself, the group entities can be improved. For that, various assets like APLUS or Lake and their customers should be well understood. What is the good matching with SBI Group's other assets, and how to create the organic integration.

Regional revitalization strategy is coming into the second act. The functions of banking and non-banking of Shinsei Bank will be fully leveraged for this second act. When we bought the Shinsei Bank, since then, when we look at SBI Group and Shinsei Bank Group, it is a very strong complementary factor. If we successfully integrate the two organically, then we can create something very good. Next. We are going to do that exactly. Review Shinsei. We have been looking into the customer attributes of Shinsei Group, and we have been looking into what kind of customers they have. We need to do a thorough research on this, or else we won't be able to match the banking assets well. For the customer base, they already have 8.587 million.

Especially what's attractive to us is APLUS, Lake. Of course, Shinsei Bank itself. We need to dig deeper to see how we can match up their business with ours. We would like to utilize thoroughly big data. In our group, we have been using big data already. In order to increase the number of customers, what areas of the business should we integrate in a stronger way? We need to look at what kind of customers are attached to certain businesses. We need to follow this by big data so that we can run a scientific analysis. It shouldn't be done by intuition. For example, this is an example of APLUS. They entered a partnership with bitFlyer the other day. For the first time in Japan, they rewarded users with Bitcoins based on the amount they send.

They started offering the bitFlyer credit card under the partnership, and the number of applications surpassed 10,000 in just three days since the survey was launched. Of course, after a month, the situation may have changed, but in three days they were able to reach 10,000. This means that there is a potential that there is strong demand out there. Of course, the crypto asset market, is it strong? Is it weak? Is it about to weaken? It is affected by these trends. However, whether there's good attraction at the beginning, from my point of view, is extremely important. We do a lot of crypto asset businesses too. How can we work with Ripple? We have a special relationship with them. Ripple's crypto assets, cryptocurrencies, how can we connect that with this? A special partnership may be possible. Many things can be considered.

SBI Securities and Shinsei Bank began preparations for full partnerships in financial products intermediary businesses. Various services will be made possible through this. SBI Securities have real estate related financial instruments and wrap products, and we will be able to sell these products to Shinsei Bank customers as well. We will have them make efforts to sell these products as well. SBI Securities will also become a bank agent. The bank and the securities company will be seamlessly connected. That we can aim for a higher customer bases and deposit volume. SBI Sumishin Net Bank has been working on this for the past because we have different customer bases, and we can apply this between SBI Securities and Shinsei Bank too.

Act two of the regional revitalization strategy, I have been communicating to my people to thoroughly promote the Triangle Strategy. What is this? It is basically that we have our functions, and Shinsei has their functions, and the regional financial institutions have their functions. We will form a trinity and thoroughly have each entity and each business grow. That's what we're striving to do. For example, in the area of structured finance, this is an area where Shinsei is said to have strength in. In reality, it seems that they do have strength in this area. The scope of their business, it has been growing, which is rare for Shinsei. Furthermore, social trends are serving as a tailwind. Meaning solar power generation, biomass or wind power generation, renewable energy, alternative energy in various verticals.

Shinsei structured finance expertise can be applied for organizing syndicated loans. What we're trying to do related to real estate projects, project finance would also be an area where this can be applied. However, they don't have the sales power. They are weak, which we have. We also have a good customer base. We have predominantly a greater customer base, and also the regional financial institutions too, in each of their regions, have an abundant amount of customers. Also, at times, as an institutional investor, they can also invest into certain products. Next is Bankit. This at APLUS, it was an app that was developed at APLUS, and it's actually good. However, it wasn't being integrated in its use with the bank. It's a wallet, basically. It doesn't include a bank function.

What we're trying to do is expand the regional banking app. If you add that function and use this app as a regional financial institution, it would be a very good function. They will be able to obtain that strong tool. If you use something good in a good way, it's great. Because they had the tool, but it wasn't integrated with the bank, and it makes sense for the first time when it's integrated with a banking function, but they were not able to do that. Next is the leasing business. For this area, it has grown into a sizable business, and it has been growing, which is Showa Leasing. On a SBI Group-wide basis, as well as with partnering with regional financial institutions, we believe there's more business opportunity to grow the business.

We need to ensure that the information becomes visible and available. We have been able to build various pieces of information from the past that we can leverage going forward. Strategic capital and business alliance partners banks, qualitative transformation is progressing, and by increasing their corporate value, it's expected to contribute to SBI Group's performance. Investment management, there's a lot of ludicrous articles about who is making a loss. I think those articles are nonsense. They were written by an amateur. What's more important needs to be noted. Investment yields used to be 0.24% in the past, but now the investment yields are up to and improved to 0.96% by changing the portfolio. When rates are up, there might be some losses, this part, but it's not going to go away.

What is the actual issue is the question. Steady income gain was low in the past. That is why the net interest income was negative. Our core profit was negative, and that's why some businesses went bankrupt. With Asakura-san, we were talking about core net income that needs to improve, and that's the kind of portfolio that it needs to change to. This is bank A through B. These are banks in which we have a stake of over 15%. The ratio of distributions to core business profit, the income gain ratio, so to say. It's 35.2%, 67.4%, 75.8%, and so forth. If they didn't have this, core business profit would be in the red. If it falls into the red, the FSA will give out a business improvement order.

This was the prime issue, especially among Tier 2 regional banks. If you left that alone, there was a potential that they were going to go bankrupt. By making an improvement on this issue, regional banks, we would like to enable them to focus on their core business. That is our investment strategy at the SBI Group and the contributions we're making to the regional banks. Based off that understanding, a lot of funds have been attracted, and a lot of banks wanted to open joint shops, co-managed shops with us, and we saw the number of those types of banks increase in number. Now we have 14 banks that co-manage 23 shops with us. As is shown, their management has been increasing, but you can see that the earnings have not been dropping off as much.

Shimane Bank core business income, there was one-off profits included in fiscal 2021 that was accounted for. In September 2019, we invested. This is where their profits used to be. It made a huge improvement. Fukushima Bank, Chikuho Bank, as well as Shimizu Bank, compared to when we made the investment, you could see that their core net business income improved substantially. This is our rule, and this was our aim. There is nonsense, newspaper articles, writing up something that is ludicrous. I think they need to do more studying, the journalists. If you wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal, someone would sue you, and your career would be over. Sendai Bank, Tsukuba Bank, Towa Bank, for most of them, core net business income has been improving and qualitative transformation has been progressing.

Secondly, the move to Neo-s ecurities. We would like to ensure that we realize this. This is basically to eliminate trading fees for domestic stock transactions and other various fees that are currently incurred by investors. Right now, you could see it has gone down to 13.2%, SBI Securities revenue. The commission dependence has been falling to this level for domestic stock brokerage commission. It used to be 71.1% for commission. This is on a quarterly basis. Now it's as low as 12%. During this period of time, you could see that the average daily individual stock brokerage revenue has been increasing. SBI Securities will diversify its products and business fields by utilizing M&A to realize Neo-s ecurities initiative at an earlier point in time.

Target areas for M&As, I have referred to it a number of times on these occasions like this, FX, digital asset, M&A, asset management companies. We have invested in these companies. Today, you saw a press release on Okasan Asset Management. Furthermore, with regards to open alliance, in particular, we will truly implement mutual fund savings by credit card. We will work with Sumitomo Mitsui Card, Tokyu Card, Takashimaya Card, APLUS under consideration as well. The effect of aligning with Sumitomo Mitsui Card was quite effective, was quite strong. It actually exceeded JPY 10 billion already. This is a win-win situation. It was an alliance that benefited both sides. The number of accounts has reached 260,000 in investment trust.

If you look at the year, excuse me, the investment trust balance at the end of the quarter, while the market is falling, you can see that the balance is actually increasing. It's JPY 5.5718 trillion. If you look at investment trust fees, compared to FY 2020-2021, we have increased by 42.1%. SBI Wrap is also widely accepted by aligning with FOLIO Holdings. Within just fifteen business days since the service launch, the asset under management exceeded JPY 5 billion.

SBI Wrap. If you look at the number of applications, amount of applications we have accepted, please look at the trend. This is as of May 23, it's already JPY 8.3 billion. Real estate finance, we are entering into the businesses here. SBI Money Plaza, they have enhanced the sales of real estate small loan beneficiary interests up until now. They have started this on a full-scale basis since 2020, and they have sold JPY 7.775 billion in seven projects altogether. Structured bond. I said, "You should stop structured bond. We should just lock it in." When you become a professional like us, when you look at the circumstances, you can tell right away it's too risky.

I said, "We need to eliminate any possibility of causing trouble to the customers, which means that you need to act early." Just because you make money, you don't take that risk. Is it all right to lose profit? Well, no. I just say replace your product portfolio. That's where it has led to real estate small loan beneficiary interest in real estate. We are also endeavoring to increase the AUM and expand business in real estate funds, such as private REITs. We work with different real estate finance companies. We have invested, acquired the shares. They make good products. We want to sell that to the customers. We have been really increasing, enhancing corporate business as well. We are now about 95% in IPO underwriting.

If you look at the number of us taking lead managers, and this is not just on the primary issuance, but also in secondary as well. At Shinsei, there's a company called Shinsei Corporate Investment, so we together, Shinsei Corporate Investment and SBI Investment work together to increase the number of IPOs that we handle. Without us financing the equity, we say, "Why don't you just borrow from the loans to those companies that are just about to go IPO?" They're just about to go IPO, so that's a great way to capture that opportunity. I wouldn't say 100%, but it's very close to that. You lend money to those companies that are about to go IPO, and profitability is good, and it's safe, less risk. Those are what we need to target.

Corporate venture capital, we have spent JPY 105 billion in total commitment amount. I said this earlier, we are industry top at 97.5%. If you look at, there are 120 public companies between April 2021 to March 2022, and we have 97.5% of them we have been working as underwriters. There were actually 20 companies we have worked as a lead manager, which is record high. Even for IPO, that's secondary, we had underwrote 25 IPOs, corporate bond underwriting as well. We have underwrote 43 corporate bonds in FY 2022. Recently, we have new public bonds. We have utility bonds. They have invited us to be the underwriters. Then we have FX business and crypto asset trading business.

We have been strengthening them. That is why we have been able to see a nice growth of trading revenue like this. Furthermore, so up until now, we have been targeting retail customers to do foreign exchange services. From now on, we will also target corporate customers like institutional investors, business corporations, financial institutions, and high-net-worth asset management companies. We are now offering OTC trading of currency-related derivatives, so this is new products, new markets that we want to pioneer. If you look at foreign stock trading, if 2018 is 1.0, then it's, by 2021, is 6.3. The trading value has now increased by 6.6 times. Trading volume has increased by 6.6 times. You can see the significant number of them, of accounts, with the realization of SBI Neotrade Securities initiatives.

We should be able to handle about 11 million, so we should be okay up to 11 million accounts. I hope that we can handle up to 15 million for sure by the end of this year. We want to achieve 30 million accounts, including M&As in the future. I think we can use a different system to deal with this. We need to adopt a system that is highly safe and has sufficient capacity and capability so that we can process many transactions without causing trouble. Our customers, like number of accounts, is increasing by 12.3% per annum. If you look at compound annual growth CAGR, between March 2009 to end of March 2022, Nomura is only 1.4, and we are 12.3.

You can see that we have been growing numbers quite rapidly. This is the acceleration of overseas business development in order to utilize arbitrage. If you look at the Asian countries, ASEAN countries, economic growth and market potential. If you look at the productivity increase, the larger the population, then the economic growth can be expected as well. In a country like this, Japan, where we see declining population, unless you improve productivity, you will not be able to achieve greater economic growth. Also, if you look at certain regions, you see that GDP per capita is also increasing as well. This is an area we need to continue to advance. In Cambodia, there's a bank called SBI LY HOUR Bank.

We have acquired a medium-sized microfinance company and made it into a commercial bank. We have 70%. This is growing quite rapidly. It went profitable right away. We also have investments into online broker in Thailand. In principle, primarily in ASEAN, we have AUM of 20.5%. Japan is 43.3%. We want to invest in high growth economies. It's really about how much you invest in there and how much business you carry out. You don't really need to go and invest in areas of low growth. Low growth economy to high growth economy, that's where the transition needs to take place. It's the other way around from how water flows. We can consider different types of arbitrage. For example, we can issue privately placed bonds by SBI LY HOUR Bank.

You know, it's a U.S.-denominated bond, 1 year, 4.1% yield. This is sort of the business that we can run. SBI Royal Securities, again, this is located in Cambodia. Among the Japanese brokers, we are the only Japanese broker who has a license to underwrite in Cambodia. We will be the lead underwriter for Cambodia's first-listed bond issuance. We can bring this to Japanese regional financial institutions. We can monitor this company. We know that this is government contract, so this is stable. We can say that we can give high yield issuance. This is business segment change concerning issues with the current segmentation and future business development.

The current segments are financial service segment, asset management segment, and biotechnology, healthcare, and medical informatics segment. That was before the revision. My interest lies in, to go beyond the finance, with finance at the core, Web 3.0, for example. Where should it be categorized in terms of business segment? Or the SBI Savings Bank in Korea was categorized as asset management, but they are in the banking business. Why asset management category? Because when we purchased it, we thought about selling it, but right now we don't intend to sell it. Well, if that's the case, it should be categorized rightly in the financial service business. Asset management and investment are different. They should be separated. As to cryptocurrency, the market is currently shrinking.

Crypto asset business is currently shrinking, but I believe that the blockchain up until 2050, or same as AI, the blockchain will be the most significant technological innovation. That technology is most used in the crypto asset area. The central banks, the currencies will be issued one after another globally. This war in Ukraine, the economic sanctions are imposed on Russia. Is that troubling Russia?

In China, looking at the current situation in Europe, China will try to go away from the SWIFT system. That kind of thinking is very important in the U.S. Using its own ammunitions. The U.S. could make itself suffer by using its own ammunitions. Their biggest ammunition is the fact that the U.S. dollar is key currency. In the SWIFT system, this key currency is used globally. When that changes, the biggest negative impact will be on the U.S. Because of those factors, we decided to change the business segment. Now, SBI Group's priority strategies and measures for the next two to three years must, meaning that it must be achieved and want to achieve considering the changes in regulatory and institutional revisions. Based on those categories, starting with must in the financing area.

We aim at aligning with 10 regional banks for capital and business alliance. The second act of regional bank revitalization should be achieved, must be achieved. The AUM of SBI Group now stands at around JPY 7 trillion, and it should go to JPY 10 trillion. What about one? By realizing that SBI Neo-s ecurities and through the jump of the customer foundation, we should lead securities industry's reorganization. In the securities industry in Japan, its position should be enhanced, and its products and services should be refined, involving regulatory changes, regime changes. Compared to the U.S., Japanese securities industry is very much behind. SBI Neo-s ecurities initiatives, the commission zero. When that happens, many companies will go under. Number four, the strengths and measures to promote from savings to investment.

We would like to decrease the savings level from 50% to 30%. The asset building that should be encouraged. For insurance business, through M&A, both at home and abroad, we aim at expanding its business size. Our insurance business is growing steadily, but the size is still very small. In ASEAN countries, we are thinking to go abroad with insurance business. As I mentioned earlier, the asset price is now coming down. Also, we do integrate non-bank business with high capital efficiency. In the future, we'd like to set up non-bank holdings, SBI non-bank holdings. When that happens, I will touch on that later. Let's move on. Support for Osaka's International Financial Center initiative by backing the strategic zone concept in collaboration with various stakeholders, including local governments.

Because of the COVID-19, because of Omicron, the initiative was at a halt, and we will resume it. The most priority strategies for non-finance initiatives branding strategy to gain recognition as a pioneer in the age of digital space. One strategy for non-finance, the SBI Group, in collaboration with its portfolio and partner companies that possess cutting-edge technologies and resources, develop a variety of businesses that follow Japan's national strategy, such as the environment, energy. Contribute to the role and infrastructure establishment in the platform business, especially in Web 3.0, including the Metaverse. SBI itself will operate in this area as well. We will aim at 10 companies in alliance with us, 10 regional financial institutions. As you know, Taiko Bank is the ninth. The bank announced on May 12th, and we have one bank to go.

We are finalizing the process. This is about new business alliance with Taiko Bank. Measures to be taken to address the challenges faced by regional financial institutions. Going into the second act. As written here. There should be some corrections later on in the Japanese text. In other words, anyway, the banking accounting system, the next generation, invokes huge cost, and there are lots of efforts to make a shift from fixed cost to variable cost in a DX database. Everything should be based on data for any decision, so the large database should be there in place for regional financial institutions.

From regional to nationwide, and internet banking system for individuals, providing a highly convenient and low-cost system to support the nationwide expansion of regional financial institutions. If you operate only in Shimane Prefecture, you cannot grow your business sufficiently when the population decreases. Industry-wise, local industries, businesses are shrinking. We need to change that. It's one thing to try to develop local businesses, but it will be faster to go nationwide. Next. Next-generation accounting system. We have been thinking about it for quite some time, and there are already some banks to participate in this initiative. Under SBI Regional Revitalization Services, and we will have anonymous partnership scheme. For investors, of course, we will distribute profit as when it becomes profitable. The systems are the issue.

The future architect, this company helps us greatly, that they are equipped with great technology. I'm very happy to work with them. AWS, with AWS, we have a very close relationship. AWS's cloud capabilities will be utilized to its full, and a cloud-based next-generation banking system will be established. By 2030, we will aim at the adoption of 10 banks and to be profitable by FY 2031. When that happens, for regional banks, that will be a big help. Fukushima Bank is the first one to start. SBI DX Database. More than 100 companies from the SBI Group and its invested companies plan to join, for manufacturing, restaurant, medical, retail, and so on. By categories, we set up database, DX Database, and used by local financial institutions and, be provided to local businesses.

This will not happen from a single merger of bank A and bank B. It should involve a qualitative transformation change. It would be meaningless to try something like this through a single merger. The seven allied banks have decided to participate in this, and we have more than 150 dealings and potential deals with about 10 contracts concluded. Shimane Bank with the internet banking system for individuals. Shimane Bank is the first bank to start using this. The different regional banks aim at making a shift from regional to nationwide using this. We aim at JPY 10 trillion of SBI Group's total assets, and currently standing at JPY 6 trillion. We are going to add on to achieve JPY 10 trillion.

It will not take probably two years to achieve it. The investment trust, about JPY 5 trillion, and private equity, JPY 713.3 billion. This is the Okasan Asset Management joint venture, 49% from Okasan Securities and SBI Group 51%. We need to make it bigger, develop it bigger for Okasan Securities as well. As to the total net assets, JPY 2,638.5 billion. Our number is greater than, for example, that of Nissay Asset Management. You do not have such image that our net asset, total net asset is greater than Nissay Asset Management, but actually we are greater than their number. SBI Asset Management, JPY 3.6 trillion AUM.

SBI Bond Investment Management and SBI Regional Revitalization Asset Management, those two entities combined together, JPY 2.1 trillion or so. That's the AUM. This is the amount consigned by the regional financial institutions. The 34% of the amount comes from the entities with which we have alliances. The remainder, 66% from the banks without any such alliances, exceeding JPY 1 trillion of SBI Asset Management, the AUM. Compared to the index fund and active fund, dominantly index fund is the growing. Collaborating with Vanguard and other entities, that we could successfully increase the level. Spearheading the restructuring of securities industry amidst sudden expansion of customer base because of new securities initiatives. Already there are many developments in the online securities sector.

For example, KDDI is now having kabu.com because au Financial Holdings made a tender offer to kabu.com. Most of the profit of the Monex Group comes from Coincheck, like 90%. Without Coincheck, there's almost no securities business. Rakuten Securities will now go public finally. SBI extending the timeline for the public listing of the banking business. Rakuten is now interested in going public for the banking business, and now they're doing the same for the securities. When we make extension, the IPO market is getting worse. Still, they are saying that they will go public. That means that they are really financially struggling. Mikitani-san, well, the other day I was talking with the Son-san, and we talked about Mikitani-san, and he's really something we discussed.

His boldness, the thoroughness, some similarities with Mr. Son and Mr. Mikitani. It's something that I will not be able to do. Rakuten is, w ell, Mikitani-san decided to go into telecommunication business when top three in the industry are already, the, determined. In the case of the Son-san, he aimed at becoming number three in the industry. That is more understandable because he, Mr. Son, did not start from scratch. The telecommunication business, more than JPY 100 billion of losses for three consecutive years. When Mr. Son was faced with that ordeal, I suggested him to sell 26% of the stake that he had in SBI, saying that the, I talked already with Goldman Sachs. "That way you can survive," I said to Mr. Son.

Back then, SBI investment portion was his stake, Mr. Son's stake was sold. Mr. Son apologized to me saying, "I'm sorry." He said that there's one condition. "Please dine with me once a month so that I can consult with you about business." I said, "Of course." With that kind of conversation, this alliance of capital came to its end with Mr. Son. He had to sell something at the bad timing, something that he had been developing, where the number of accounts increased for securities business. When it comes to profit level, it's coming down for the banking and for securities. It's about Rakuten and the revision of point program. It was their strength.

It was the strength of Mikitani-san, but now it's the weakest point because it extends, its expense which continued to increase. The second tier, mid-tier securities sectors are also witnessing some developments. For example, the Matsui, the securities selling E*TRADE or ACE Securities, absorbed by Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings. Various things are happening in the market. When we decided to make online commission zero, when we make commission zero, there will be more developments in the market. Our objective is to seek, pursue customer-centric principles. Investors and the beneficiaries of financial products, we'd like to offer the best benefits to those stakeholders. That's our basic thinking. That's why we have been seeking very low level of fees. It's not something that the other players can imitate because the customer base is so different.

Change in basis of SBI Securities, share of individual stock trading value, SBI share 44.1%, and share of individual margin trading value, SBI has 45.6% share. This is among all the other players, both the internet and brick and mortar. Of course, the customer-centric principle drives shakeouts in the industry. That is the principle, absolute principle of capitalism. That is for the customers, for the sake of customers. When we think about customers, that's the end result that you come to. If the benefits are damaged, then you will lose customers, and that is reflected in transfer, in transfers of SBI Securities. The index is starting at 1.0 in January 2021.

It is 42.1, that is the trend of in transfers, and 90% of those in transfers come from Rakuten Securities. The penalty payment exists for the transfer, and that penalty payment is shouldered by SBI Securities. That's why we have more inflows of customers. This is comparison in the securities business. Monex Group and others are listed here. Monex Group, more than 90% of the profit comes from Coincheck and very high volatility. There is a possibility of their profit level go down significantly. Matsui Securities, their commission fee is very high, and that's how they maintain the profit level. Rakuten, ordinary income, JPY 62.1 billion SBI Securities and JPY 30.9 billion is Rakuten Securities. Net income is JPY 7.2 billion, while SBI Securities has JPY 40 billion. Second-tier, mid-tier securities are also listed here.

Industry shake and restructuring. If commissions go zero, for example, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE follow that trend after Robinhood, and they also zeroed out their commissions. With that, from 2001 to 2019, the 5,499 companies went down to 3,435 companies. In Japan, we're still at this level right now. I think there's fiduciary duty thoroughly being abided to in the U.S., and customer-centric investor protection has been done thoroughly, and that's why we are here. It's not like Japan, where investment trusts, you buy it today and sell it tomorrow just because it appreciated somewhat. That doesn't apply in the US. That's not accepted. In the case of Japan, when Mori-san was the head of the FSA, he was talking about the importance of fiduciary duty.

I think conditions have improved, but we still have lots to do. We do have the securities association, but even at Nomura Securities or at local securities companies, they only have one single vote each at the JSDA.

The commissions are the same, the products are pretty much the same. It's like the past when we had the convoy method. That's a negative from a national citizens economy point of view, but that has been the practice for a long period of time. That's why the order of industry has been maintained. What broke through that was the financial Big Bang. The financial Big Bang, meaning the deregulation of commission under the administration of Mr. Hashimoto back then. That changed things in a large way. Still, we are here. For example, the TSE, PTS. Their interests, they are protecting their interests, so they have been inhibiting the growth of the PTS market. They have these really boring systems. Changing all of this would be a positive for the benefit of the citizens in the nation.

I think one step to move towards that direction is to zero commissions. For personal financial assets, bringing down the ratio to 50%-30% in cash and deposits. If a sound securities company increases in number and starts to say decent things, and tries to practice decent sales activities, and tries to offer decent products and promote them, we will probably see a different world emerge. Of course, for the FSA, they will need to do something around the taxation method because now we have NISA and iDeCo finally, under the Suga administration or when he was the cabinet secretary. We still have much more to do. The taxation on pension funds, pensions need to change as well.

Personal financial assets in this country, even under a zero interest rate market, we still have a tremendous amount of deposits in cash, which is JPY 2,023 trillion. This is not for the benefit of the people. I really wanna change this for the sake of Japan. At least maybe we can go down to a little bit over 30% in cash and deposits like the European region. NISA. We were pioneers in this space, and we have been making tremendous efforts. When you look at new customers, we have 77.6% of new customers, and within that, 72.6% are investment beginners. For beginners, we wanted them to subscribe to NISA, and we wanted them to accumulate their assets. This taxation system for NISA needs to be perpetual.

For Junior NISA, it accounts for 30% of total number of accounts. For iDeCo, this also. We made administrative fees completely free of charge ahead of 27 leading other players. Therefore, for individual defined contribution plans, the cumulative number of customers is the leader. We are the leader in the industry. For insurance, like I mentioned earlier, our scale is still small. We have been able to grow steadily, but the M&As that we've been doing are small in scale in the past. Strategy-wise, we need to change it somewhat and look at the ASEAN markets too, meaning the international markets, to think about the future. Number six, consolidating non-bank businesses and establishing non-bank holdings in the future. For non-banks, we want to basically gather them together and strive to generate synergies between them.

The non-banks and banks, securities business, and insurance business, we want to generate synergies there as well, and we want to promote this strenuously so that for ROE, other financial industry average is 8.5% and banking average is 4.1%. But we want to exceed that from a ROE perspective. That's the kind of entity we would like to establish. Number seven, international financial center initiative. Well, Osaka, in a full-fledged way, they are trying to start moving again. They're trying to turn it into a special strategic zone and also disseminate various pieces of information. Not only it's Osaka, but including Hyogo and Kobe as well. That's what I've been saying from before. The governor is now a member of the Ishin Party, so it's easier to promote these efforts.

There's benefits there. For example, Kobe has been a port city following Yokohama, and they are close to mountains as well as the sea, and they have a high-end neighborhood, actually, a lot of them. From Rokko Station to Hankyu Rokko along the Hankyu line. I think it is a beautiful neighborhood along that corridor. When it comes to English education, there are many international schools for non-Japanese people. It's close to Kyoto and Nara, and inbound traveling will probably resume again, and KIX, the Kansai airport will probably become revitalized. That kind of regional benefit should be leveraged under this international financial city initiative, which we would like to support. We already, at SBI as a group, have established an Osaka HQ.

FinTech Center establishment, we're aiming for this, and we would like to attract various entities from abroad. Also, what was on halt regarding Dojima, for this as well, we would like to bring this to a resolution. Fortunately, for the digital exchange, we have been authorized as a PTS. Now towards its opening, preparations are being made. As for ST, there has been activity there as well. The Osaka FinTech Center related initiatives, the special strategic zone, needs to offer various types of tax incentives, which we've been speaking about. For SBI API Mart, this is also close to realization.

Various API offers will be putting a lot of their APIs on the platform, and corporates as well as other people who would like to search the APIs will come onto the platform as well. Through the API Mart, local financial institutions and municipalities will be able to distribute information as well. That's the kind of API Mart we would like to establish in the Osaka FinTech Center. System-wise, this is close to fruition. Furthermore, SBI Regional Revitalization Partners, Concordia Financial Group, as well as SBI Shinsei Bank and Yamaguchi Financial Group has been participating. A mechanism that will contribute is being established. There has been quite a lot of delay due to Omicron, but in many aspects, it has started to move again.

For example, tax-paying companies may be able to receive a tax deduction of up to 90% of the donated amount. It's the corporate version of hometown tax. Together with a company called RCG in Osaka, we will engage in a partnership to promote this business. This company is also one of our investees. This talks about branding that I talked about before, which Dentsu is playing a central role in this process. We'll use, maximize, the metaverse to think about what kind of branding we should have in digital space. Steady progress is being made here. Number nine, SBI Group develops various businesses in environment, energy, and other areas that can support Japan's national strategy in cooperation with investing in partner companies that possess cutting-edge technologies and resources.

Well, as much as possible for startups or companies that have just been listed, I want presidents and heads of those companies to participate and become heads of our business as well. I want their passion and wisdom that can be leveraged, and that's the kind of mechanism I would like to create. For example, for regional revitalization services. The hometown tax, Mr. Fukutome, I've been asking and calling upon him to serve as president. In this way, young and wonderful people are the people we would like to have participate in our group. If the talent is developed internally, we won't be able to catch up because businesses continue to expand, and we just don't have enough time. In this way, we will continue to promote our businesses under this kind of framework. For example, the company CHANGE.

It's listed on the TSE Prime Market, and we have an ownership of 20%. They carry products and services of more than 1,600 local governments nationwide, and they operate Furusato Choice and owns TRUSTBANK, the subsidiary which operates Furusato Choice. They know other regional areas well, so if they become a part of SBI Regional Revitalization Services, we believe that would be effective. I asked him to make decisions on his own discretion and to serve as president on my behalf. For the next company, Remixpoint, it's a listed company in TSE Standard, and we invest 20%. There are various energy businesses such as power development. We will be jointly developing renewable energy sources. Genki Oda, I think, is a wonderful person. He's very competent.

I want to be able to identify these types of young people that are competent to delegate the management of these entities. That we can contribute to the development of our nation as well as the development of the world. Now I'm 71 years old, and I'm an old manager. I think delegating the process to the younger generation is the very mechanism we should adopt. I would like to do more of these kinds of things in the future. This is Michi-no-Eki Roadside Station project. This is also another project under SBI Regional Revitalization Services. At the roadside stations, the electric vehicle charging infrastructure is not just being installed, but we would like to also be able to turn roadside stations as a place where disasters can be prevented.

We own 53% of Nippon Charge Infra. We would like, through this entity, increase the number of quick chargers that are installed and also have disaster prevention functions as well, and equip them at roadside stations, and also contribute to the promotion and penetration of electric vehicles through this entity. ERI, Eco Research Institute. We also have an investment in this entity as well. In fact, they have a wonderful technology called NECRIS, a new energy creation system. From municipal waste, they do pyrolysis by mixing it together with plastic, and they're able to produce biomass fuel out of it. That's the kind of technology they have. They're able to recycle. To local governments, compared to the prices in the past, the cost will go down substantially for them.

It's not the municipalities, but even general corporations can also adopt this kind of technology as well. Especially in the paper industry, where there's a lot of municipal waste, we hope they adopt this process more and more. BALNIBARBI , t his is also a listed company in Shimane Prefecture. With local companies there and Shimane Bank and BALNIBARBI and ourselves, we are working together to develop a hotel. This is actually in a hall, but this will be a room. This is the image of the facility. I think this will become really popular. This is the kind of restaurant that is expected to be developed. There was nothing there in the past, but actually, it is a very scenic place. It is in Shimane Prefecture.

We'd like to revitalize that place so that it can become a destination. They have Izumo Taisha, they have the castle. They didn't have a good hotel though in the past. In this way, we would like to change Shimane. It's not just the financial institutions that should extend their support. It won't change just with financial support. It should be fleshed out in this way. Also, local currencies. In 27 regions right now, it has been implemented. With Taiko Bank and Kyushu Electric Power Company and ourselves, we have a three-party JV in place, and the system is from R3. It's based off the Corda system. We would like to do this nationwide in Japan, and I would like to use this at the Expo. Because it's a system for local currencies.

Number 10, it's a platform business that I'd like to talk about. Especially in Web 3.0, including the Metaverse, contribute to the governance and infrastructure establishment of the platform business. In the ST world, I thought that a voluntary association needs to be made at an early stage because we don't want anything like the initial coin offering to happen. Because in the securities industry and bank industry, STs were going to be a treasure, but we do not want to destroy it. That's why we created the Japan STO Association, and it was accredited as a self-regulatory organization by the FSA. There are 66 companies right now, including supporting members. Now we have been able to establish this distinguished association. Also, we have ST Research Consortium, which is organized by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation.

We are a member of this, and we are not exclusive. If there is good technology available, we could use Progmat or with Nomura and ourselves, we could use that system too. We're not trying to be exclusive. What we want to achieve is for investors, we want to be able to provide new and safe products and, we want to create both an issuance market as well as a distribution market. As one single large financial instrument, we want to nurture STO. The same thing applies to Metaverse, I guess. There's a lot of issues that's not even comparable to comparable to issues that STO is facing. We need sound development and recommendations policy-wise needs to be made, and information needs to be disseminated.

Accounting treatment methodologies as well as legal frameworks need to be put in place, and we need an entity that has a say around these affairs. That was on my mind, and that's why the Financial Research Institution at SBI was established, as well as the Japan Digital Economy Federation was made. I don't really like the word space, but space was translated into Japanese, unfortunately. Although I did not like the name in Japanese in particular, but I decided not to be adamant about that kind of issue, especially when I'm in this kind of industry. But what I was particular about was, is it a positive for the national economy, as well as investors, as well as for consumers? This is an area that I cannot compromise. We will continue to make these things.

SBI Financial and Economic Research Institute has been holding seminars one after another, so they are moving ahead. This is ST infrastructure. This is equity fixed income. We've done this. That's number one. We have sold them, distributed them. What's most potential is public offering of asset or real estate-backed ST. For example, at Rokko Island, we have a data center or distribution warehouse. I think those are quite suitable for such product. Real estate STO can be done on a small lot. Whatever that wasn't in the market will now be available to the market. Compared to J-REIT, like, the properties to be invested are much better defined. It's clearer to understand.

We don't want to just focus on primary issuance market, but we need to create the distribution secondary market as well. For issuance market, I decided not to be too persistent with the system. I decided we can use Nomura or Progmat, whatever is better, or maybe whatever the issuer decides to choose. We can just promote that and continue with the issuance. Of course, SBI Securities in United States is a shareholder as well. Maybe if they build something better, we can implement that as well. I think that's a possibility. As for distribution market, we have ODX, Osaka Digital Exchange. We established that. We are now moving with custody. We have aligned with a U.K. company to establish a joint venture.

It's going to be a global custody, and of course, it will be based in Japan, and we will have the majority and take leadership. That's what we want to establish. When we do that, when all of these are in place, we will be able to move to the next stage. In overseas, wherever is ready, we have made investments. We are collaborating and coordinating, and ultimately, we will distribute all sorts of digital assets, and we will form the one of the world's largest global corridors. In Germany, in Stuttgart, there's a number one stock exchange called Boerse Stuttgart Group, which we have made an investment. There is a digital, first digital asset bank called Sygnum Bank AG, which we invested in. We have SBI Digital Markets we are developing.

In Thailand, there's a Siam subsidiary called SCB 10X. We're investing there as well. Excuse me, Siam is investing in it. In May this year, there's an approval from the Swiss SIX for a Singapore-based digital exchange. We are making a steady step. ODX, we have been able to obtain approval for PTS. Asia's SIX, we will develop it together in 2022, and we will officially launch. We have acquired in-principle approval CMS license by Singapore MAS. We will have this aligned with ODX Osaka to establish this large global corridor. In Africa, this market called Africa is one continent I have not visited, even though I have visited more than 100 countries around the world, especially Central Africa. I have been to Tunisia, Morocco, which is called MENA.

I have visited there, but I have never been to Central Africa. I myself don't feel like going to Africa too much. I don't want to catch infectious disease, so I don't want to go. I'm already 71 years old. I'm asking younger colleagues to see if they want to develop Africa. There's people that raise their hands, so they will go and develop African market. Why African market? Why is it important, especially from the point of view from the financial services? Because in Africa, more than any other currencies, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin has much more reliability. It's a very simple fact. It has actually distributed really quite well. It's just one year until January.

If you look at the number of transactions and use of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, surged by 15-fold in Africa for number of transactions and 25-fold for the number of users. We started off with the sales of used cars, and we were looking into doing construction machinery, and we are discussing various different opportunities. I said that ultimately, Ripple's ODL we want to utilize. Its on-demand liquidity, we want to be able to utilize that. Like I said earlier, blockchain. It is to be considered one of the greatest intellectual property by 2050. That's how much of a use blockchain will be. We have a company which we have established called SBI Traceability. It is able to demonstrate authenticity through blockchain, so you cannot alter it. This rice is Japan-made.

You can explicitly say that sake is authentically Japanese. Why is it that wine has been able to market around the world with such a premium price? I think it's very much up to the power of U.K. and France. They have worked together to raise the value. I think it's the proof of authenticity that it wasn't a fake. I think they have been able to build that element of it, and they have made it possible to demonstrate the authenticity. They have done tasting, and if it didn't taste right, they built a world where you can say no to it. However, we are able to now do this with technology. This is a traceability mechanism we have developed.

There's a company, our label called BORN, by Katoukichibee Shouten, which has been doing this business for 162 years. I had drank a Cho-Gin BORN label, sake the other day, and it was extremely delicious. They have implemented this mechanism for the first time in the world, so they are now able to demonstrate authenticity, and they can do that when they export this. I think Japanese sake manufacturers need to do that. NFT marketplace now. As for NFT, I said, "You need to develop the platform first," and that's what we have been trying to do. If there's a good company, we acquired it, and that has become SBI NFT today. SBI Art Auction portfolio, it's an auction house which we own as well.

I said, "You need to handle digital art right away," and that's what they have been doing. In a short period of time, we have been able to proceed forward. E-S ports. We are implementing new approaches one after another. For example, this is the world of Metaverse. This is the SBI Group's mechanism for improving corporate value. From the start of the company, I have been declaring about corporate value. I start off with customer value. Goods and services that would delight the customers, this is the intrinsic value of the company, so we need to produce that. If we can produce that, then we can see increase in revenue and profit. If revenue and profit increases, we will be able to hire the right talent.

By increasing the base salary or compensation or offer stock options, we'll be able to recruit talents, good talents. People are the source of creativity and the main source of competitiveness and differentiation. This is something I have been calling out for from the beginning. The concept of the so-called corporate value is often reflected as the present value of cash values, which will be eventually received by the shareholders and creditors in the future. That's what the business school told you. But I said, "They're saying that that's not the real corporate value." It's the customer value, it's the shareholder value, and the human resources value. It's the virtuous cycle that really develops the intrinsic value of the company. This is very fundamental to us. In order to improve the customer value, we need to truly adhere to the customer-centric principle.

For specifically, that'll be services with even lower fees, or so if they have a long menu or service that's easy to compare, the cost to the customers is clear and transparent. It's safe and reliable services. You need to offer all of these, and that's what customer-centric is about. As a result, including Shinsei, we now have 42 million customers. Even without Shinsei, we have 33.5 million customers. With this customer base, we will be approaching utilizing big data. Customer value can be reflected in this point system as well. If you try to retain the customers just to yourself, it will not be beneficial to the customers. That's why we collaborate with T-Point, V-Point, d POINT. Even, I've been saying, even Rakuten Point, I will welcome it.

If customers think that's the best for them, they should be able to use it. That is why more than the Rakuten Ecosystem, I say it's the multi-point ecosystem that's important. With regards to shareholder value, we need to make our return on equity ROE more than 10%. I've been saying that for a long time. In FY 2021, it's 49.4%. Even with excluding Shinsei Bank, it's 20.8%. If you look at the banking industry, it's 4.1% on average. Securities commodity derivatives is 7.9%. Insurance is 7.1%. Dividend, we will pay out JPY 150 per share on a full year basis. We paid out JPY 30 per share for interim, so the year-end will be JPY 120 per share. Officially, this is a guidance.

It will be officially approved later, but of course, this has already been approved by the board. So I think you can consider to be this as an official announcement. Basic policy on shareholder returns from FY 2022 after implementing segment change, because we're a company, if we paid everything out in dividends, we won't have any funds to run the business for the future. We have a level of retained earnings, and of course, we have the outlook for the foreseeable future. We will take all of these things into consideration to decide on the annual dividend. With this new financial services, so with securities and banking and insurance business, there's some visibility to it. That will be the basis for us to decide on the dividend.

As for the total return on the shareholders' level, for the time being, the total payout amount of the dividends plus share buybacks will be determined based on 30% of the profit before income tax that is regularly generated by the financial services business after the segment change. Again, the segmentation has just been approved by the board today, so there's much more that we need to refine, but I believe that this is the direction of the decision. Shareholders' benefit, as you can see here, with related to the shareholder value, one thing I struggle with is the high percentage of foreign ownership. It's 48.6% today. Japanese institutional investor is 27.6%. People who really understand the most of what I've been saying is foreign institutional investors. They understand me the best.

Of course, for some reason or not, you know, there's someone who sold off all 8% stake. I'd have thought that maybe they were going to exit from the Japanese market. They basically sold everything off that they owned. Maybe there were others, I forgot who. Cybereason, was it? They sold it off. Maybe the stance against Japan, or maybe there's such a large loss that they needed to exit this market. I don't know the reason. Even today, the share prices went up, so they sold then. It seems as though they have sold us. I think share prices will begin to calm down. I think it's great that we have foreign ownership like this. That's fine with me.

The fact that their percentage is too high for financial, you know, we always fear that maybe FSA will say something about our business because we run a financial services business. There's a concern for that when the foreign ownership is too high. Now that Omicron has calmed down, and we have been suspending for the last two years information meeting to the domestic institutional investors, and I want to resume that in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya. I'm planning to resume that information meeting for the Japanese investors. The retail investors, their percentage is only 19.2%. It's a slight decrease over the years, and instead, the foreign institutional investors are buying. Shareholder value can be increased with proactive disclosure information, high dividends, attractive shareholder benefits, especially for retail investors, that's very attractive.

Of course, information meeting and shareholders meeting. We want to contact, have much contact as possible with the retail investors. I think we need to create opportunities to speak to them. I think that's fundamental. As for the value of human resources, I announced this the other day, but we will be raising the pay table covering starting salary for new graduates. They will now receive JPY 292,000 from April 2022. That's 16.8% Increase in pay. If you look at the pay table of year three employees, they will get a raise of 16.7% . From June, we will implement a compensation system that is performance-linked for all the management.

Also in every business, if there's a talent pool that's missing, so for example, data analyst, someone with sophisticated IT technology, there's a market price to it, so we will follow that. Also, for example, we do a lot of mid-career hiring. Enormous number of people are mid-careers. These people are in principle, we reference the salary that they got paid in their previous position. It's up until now, it's been basically the same level as what they've been used to to get paid. I think that could be carried on because it's only when they start working for us we'll be able to really identify their actual capabilities. They will be assessed after that.

I don't think that a lot of people will get a lower pay, but we will fully utilize SBI Graduate School to provide training and education for the talents. M&A itself, it's an opportunity to acquire outstanding talents. Like I said, I say, "I will, you know, delegate this business entity to you. It's your responsibility." That business entity will pay the compensation. That is why you could get a very high pay or compensation. In that way, I want to increasingly distribute. I don't want to. I'm wondering a 3% range. I mean, what would that change? Because right now the consumer prices are rising at a higher rate than that.

I think that Russian issue, when that is over, I say pay a special salary, you know, for, in line with price inflation to people who are in Russia, who have been sent to Russia, so that they will not be in a disadvantageous position. I also said e-Sports, you know. This representative, you know, we're paying him well, and also this the man who represents Africa business, this is only his ninth year in his thirties. He's now president. Because he made breakeven right away, I decided to raise his compensation quite significantly. Now it's 6:02 P.M. So, I want to end my presentation. Here's your appendix, and you will have segment information. You see a lot of information attached to it, so I hope you will look at that at your own time. That is all. Thank you very much for your attention.

There are other attendees as well. I'm ready to answer your questions.

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