Monex Group, Inc.

Japan's attempts to intervene in the yen have instead turbocharged the carry trade, prompting Japanese investors to pile into more than 5 trillion yen worth of foreign assets in the two weeks through August 15, a sharp reversal from net sales of 300 billion yen in the prior two-week period. After coordinated intervention with the United States in July pushed the yen from 164 per dollar to around 155 per dollar, investors seized the chance to buy foreign assets at cheaper prices. Jesper Koll of Monex Group said the intervention accelerated the carry trade because borrowing costs in Japan remain lower than returns abroad. The yen has since weakened back toward 159 per dollar, and the yield gap between 10-year US and Japanese government bonds still stands at 1.8 percentage points. Institutional and retail investors continue to sell yen to buy US bonds and G10 currencies, especially the Australian dollar, while leveraged funds have cut their net short yen positions from 138,000 contracts to 59,526 contracts as of August 11.

Monex Group announced on August 5 the establishment of the Monex On-Chain Finance Research Institute, which will advance research and social implementation of on-chain finance. The institute will investigate regulations and technology trends in various countries and examine services and business models suited to Japan's legal system and market environment. It plans to provide end-to-end support for financial institutions and startups, from service design to commercialization and social implementation. Key research themes include on-chain financial infrastructure and the legal frameworks necessary for social implementation, the creation and distribution of tokenized assets and real-world assets, and the utilization of stablecoins. Masamichi Matsushima of Monex Group has been appointed head of the institute, and the planned members will consist of personnel from Monex Group, Monex Securities, Coincheck, Monex Asset Management, and Next Finance Tech.

NTT Docomo Financial Group President Takashi Hiroi has revealed plans to externally sell financial services such as banking functions to corporate clients. The company envisions providing these services to regional banks looking to strengthen their point services, as well as industries with large customer bases like transportation, aiming to indirectly capture the customers of its partners. The group owns SBI Sumishin Net Bank and Monex Securities, and already provides banking functions to companies such as Japan Airlines. Starting in August, it will gradually begin offering banking services like account opening at Docomo retail stores, and it also indicated plans to eventually develop its payment app d Payment into a super app.