Latest news with #SumitomoMitsuiBanking
Business Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Japan's top banks said to mull joint ATM operation to cut costs
[TOKYO] MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and Mizuho Bank are considering jointly operating automated teller machines (ATMs) to reduce costs, said sources familiar with the matter. The units of Japan's three biggest banking groups are discussing details of joint operation, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. The banks are seeing whether costs can be reduced for tasks needed to run ATMs such as monitoring, security and cash transportation. An MUFG spokesperson said nothing has been decided as of now. Spokespeople for Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho were not able to immediately comment on the matter. BLOOMBERG
Nikkei Asia
09-05-2025
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
Japan's SMFG to invest $1.6bn in India's Yes Bank
TOKYO -- Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group announced plans Friday to invest in Yes Bank, a major Indian commercial bank. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, a subsidiary of SMFG, will acquire 20% of Yes Bank's shares for 134.8 billion rupees ($1.58 billion), making it an equity-method affiliate. Although Japanese banks have previously invested in nonbank entities, this marks the first instance of capital participation by a Japanese bank in an Indian private commercial bank.
Japan Times
08-04-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Japan's SMBC to expand in Brazil's local bond capital markets
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking is starting a bond distribution desk and a securitization business in Brazil as part of an expansion plan to become a meaningful player in the nation's booming local debt capital markets. The Japanese bank plans to start structuring products such as asset-backed securities, hoping to capitalize on the growing market and strong prospects for infrastructure investments in Brazil, according to Luciana Massaad, head of Brazil debt capital markets, who said Adriana Madaras was hired to head the distribution unit. "Now we are baby stepping and doing plain-vanilla bonds,' Massaad said in an interview. "But the more products we develop, the more opportunities we can take.' SMBC, which is expanding throughout Latin America, started the local bond underwriting business in Brazil last year and has completed four transactions. In September, the Tokyo-based company hired Joaquim Marques, who now heads Brazil corporate and investment banking, and Juan Francisco Toro, chief executive officer for the non-bank financial business in Mexico. Sumitomo also has representative offices in Chile, Colombia and Peru. Local infrastructure bond volume in Brazil more than doubled in February to a record for the month of 12.8 billion reais ($2.3 billion). The total of 25.9 billion reais for the year surpassed the first quarter of 2024, according to Anbima, the nation's capital-markets association. Total local bond sales almost doubled to a record 502.8 billion reais last year. "We always had pretty much Japanese CEOs in the Americas, and we still have them because they are a huge support to us,' said Carl Adams, the deputy head of the Americas division who's responsible for Latin America. "But over the last few years, we also are hiring local CEOs that are partnering together with Japanese expats to figure out how we can maximize value business by business.' The idea is to hire more executives to serve the region, including specialists in mergers and acquisitions, with a view to "leveraging our expertise in our energy infrastructure project-finance side to create a multi-product platform,' Adams said. The bank is also building a global asset-management operation, and has joint ventures and a local fund in Colombia. It's building one in Mexico, also with a local fund, while discussing building specific individual funds with partners interested in Brazil. "We see huge growth potential in the local currency space across the region,' Adams said. Deals Pipeline The bank is very active in derivatives and international debt capital markets, and has a pipeline of deals on the acquisition finance side, according to Marques. SMBC Nikko Securities America, the lender's broking, trading and investment-banking unit, was among the joint lead managers of a $1 billion bond sale by Raizen, a Brazilian bioenergy company, issued in February. With 2.1 billion reais in shareholder equity and total assets of 12.5 billion reais in its Brazilian bank unit, SMBC has $10 billion in total exposure to Brazil, according to Achilles Suarez, chief executive officer of the bank's Brazilian unit. The bank has about 350 Japanese clients, 75 Brazilian corporates and multinationals and about 30 banks, and the goal is to expand its customer base in Brazil by adding 30 to 40 new clients a year. "We are going to grow the number of multinationals, private equity funds, pension funds, sovereign-wealth funds, sophisticated family offices — those are a key priority for us,' Marques said. Jefferies Financial Group, which opened its first office in Brazil in 2023, is also collaborating with the Brazilian unit of Sumitomo in offering credit and credit-related products to its local clients as part of its global relationship with the bank, it said in July.
Japan Times
03-04-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
SMBC and Fujitsu to partner on AI-driven forecasting services
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking is tapping Fujitsu's artificial intelligence models to bolster its advisory services for customers grappling with rising wages and materials costs. The banking arm of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is in talks to provide corporate client data to Fujitsu to run through the IT company's multimodal machine learning tools to make business forecasts, according to people familiar with the matter. The AI-inferred demand predictions would help some of the bank's biggest customers make key decisions from staffing to procurement to capital spending and financing, the people said, asking not to be named discussing nonpublic information. The two companies will soon sign a basic agreement, they said. The move would be a rare instance of a Japanese bank allowing another company access to sensitive customer data, such as store-by-store visitor and sales numbers. Corporate Japan is fighting labor shortages in a rapidly aging society as well as high materials prices from a depressed yen. Representatives of SMBC and Fujitsu declined to comment. For Fujitsu, the tie-up is a validation of a forecasting model central to its ambitions to expand in the lucrative AI and consulting arenas. The company, which has sold its chip packaging subsidiary Shinko Electric Industries and divested its stake in air-conditioning unit Fujitsu General, is undertaking a yearslong shift away from hardware.
