Japan Post Bank Co., Ltd.

The Digital Currency Innovation Institute, a general incorporated association working to standardize tokenized deposits, held a press conference in Tokyo on September 25 and announced it will begin full-scale operations on October 1. Former Administrative Vice Minister of Finance and lawyer Eijiro Katsu will serve as representative director, former Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will serve as executive advisor, and Hiromi Yamaoka, former head of the BOJ's Payment and Settlement Systems Department and chair of the predecessor Digital Currency Forum, will serve as deputy representative director. The institute was formed by reorganizing and developing the Digital Currency Forum, which was launched in 2020, and was established as a corporate entity in July this year. It aims to establish common rules for systems that tend to differ from bank to bank and to expand use in inter-company remittances and payments. The institute will operate through three committees: a banking committee, a technology committee, and a user committee, and its directors include executive officers from major financial institutions such as SBI Shinsei Bank, GMO Aozora Net Bank, and MUFG Bank. Regarding DCJPY, Japan Post Bank will maintain its plan to issue it during fiscal 2026, while Hokuriku Bank plans to move toward commercialization in its payment business, and more than 40 companies have so far decided to join the institute or are considering doing so.

Major Japanese bank stocks rose on Friday as a surge in government bond yields and expectations of more interest rate hikes pointed to improving margins for local lenders. Mizuho Financial, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Japan Post Bank, and Resona jumped between 3.2% and 4.5%, underpinning an over 1% rise in the Nikkei 225. Japanese government bond yields surged this week, with the 10-year rate hitting a 30-year high as rising oil prices fueled concerns over rising inflation and interest rates. Bets on more Bank of Japan rate hikes also underpinned Japanese banks, after the BOJ raised rates by 25 basis points last week and warned of more such moves in the coming months. Japan Post was an outperformer in the group, given that the lender's massive government bond book allows it to earn more on reinvesting at higher yields.

Japan Post Bank announced on the 7th its results for the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2027, with ordinary profit up 64.7 percent year on year to 253.528 billion yen and quarterly net profit up 69.3 percent to 177.573 billion yen, marking a sharp increase in earnings. Ordinary profit reached 26.5 percent of the full-year forecast of 955 billion yen, and net profit reached 26.9 percent of the full-year forecast of 660 billion yen, a solid start. Consolidated business net profit expanded sharply from 22.2 billion yen a year earlier to 187.4 billion yen. The profit growth was driven by investment income, with interest on foreign securities rising by 150.6 billion yen and interest on Japanese government bonds rising by 30.4 billion yen amid higher domestic interest rates. The bank has a distinctive business model that earns money through securities investment rather than lending, and as of the end of March 2026, market-related revenue accounted for about 88 percent of gross business profit. Ordinary savings accounts numbered about 120 million, savings deposits stood at 186.2558 trillion yen, and the capital adequacy ratio was 15.15 percent, with the strength of its customer base and capital also supporting the strong performance.

Japan Post Bank announced its first-quarter results for the fiscal year ending March 2027, with quarterly net profit rising 69.3% year-on-year to 177.5 billion yen. Ordinary revenue increased 27.1% to 848.1 billion yen, and ordinary profit rose 64.7% to 253.5 billion yen, representing progress rates of 26.5% and 26.9% respectively against full-year forecasts. The main driver was a 174.8 billion yen increase in net interest income, due to higher interest on Japanese government bonds amid rising domestic interest rates and expanded earnings from foreign bond investment trusts. Despite the strong results, the stock closed at 3,087 yen on the 10th, down 101 yen from the previous day, amid a broader decline in financial stocks.

Japan Post Bank announced on the 7th that it will raise interest rates on time deposits and fixed-amount deposits. The new rates take effect on the 10th. The move follows the Bank of Japan's additional rate hike in June. The rate increase for time deposits ranges from 0.1 to 0.35 percentage points, bringing the one-year rate to 0.5 percent, the five-year rate to 1.0 percent, and the ten-year rate to 1.25 percent.

DCP and Infcurion announced on July 14 that they have begun a joint study aimed at the social implementation of on-chain finance utilizing the tokenized deposit DCJPY. The two companies have signed a basic agreement and will focus on three use cases: card payments, benefit payments, and goal-based savings. For card payments, they aim to create a mechanism allowing banks that have adopted DCJPY to easily issue debit cards, enable flexible setting of repayment dates, and improve cash flow for merchants. For benefit payments, they envision digital benefits replacing paper gift certificates, where benefits and subsidies received in DCJPY can be used on Infcurion's payment terminal Anywhere. For goal-based savings, they will study a Save Now Pay Later mechanism by linking the app Finbee with DCJPY, allowing funds automatically accumulated toward a target amount to be used directly for payments. This goal-based savings use case overlaps with the tokenized deposit utilization examples outlined in Japan Post Bank's medium-term management plan, and Japan Post Bank has announced a policy to issue Japan Post DCJPY within fiscal 2026.