SBI Holdings Stock

Thank you very much for attending this SBI Holdings full year results announcement. At the venue, we see dozens of people, and I understand that more than 110 people are participating online as well. Without further ado, let me start. So we have quite a big volume of documents. So I would like to go through numbers briefly.

The consolidated performance revenue, JPY 1,896.6 billion, up 31.4%. Pretax income, JPY 516.7 billion. 83% up. And the profit for the period, JPY 430.5 billion, up 127.6%, in which profit attributable to owners of the company, JPY 427.6 billion, plus 163.7%. Each of them are record highs, especially the ROE has been my focus, 28.0% year-on-year, it's a big increase. Usually, the Japanese banking industry for FY 2024 average was 7.25%.

What about U.S., JPMorgan Chase, even JPMorgan Chase, 16.69%; Morgan Stanley, 16.52%; Goldman Sachs, 14.91%. The other banks, big financial companies representing the U.S. market compared to them, our ROE is better. So the comparison of consolidated performance with major securities groups, as I mentioned earlier, we have covered their numbers. The Nomura, JPY 362.1 billion, ROE 10.1%; and Daiwa, JPY 175.3 billion, 10.3%; and there is SMBC Nikko Securities, JPY 94.4 billion, 7.5% ROE; and the Mitsubishi UFJ, JPY 664.3 billion, 10% of ROE. So 28% of our number is really a surprisingly good number.

Looking at Nikkei Index, the 3 largest securities and so on, this way of writing of conventional media, but even the new medias and the conventional medias, all of them are using the Internet. And I'm wondering why Nikkei continues to write such stupid articles.

The other day, I met with the Commissioner of the FSA. I told him that we need to do something about it. It's so shameful that net and real are now fused and the business model, which does not allow it, they will just go under and it's not good for readers either. And so on SNS, though we put up this table here on SNS as well. The newspaper companies, they should do a better job.

Now this is performance by segment. Financial Services business is a dominant result, JPY 425 billion; the pretax income and asset management business, JPY 8.6 billion; fee Investment business, JPY 82 billion; crypto asset, JPY 21.2 billion; NextGen business, JPY 22 billion. This year, we acquired our own shares totaling JPY 50 billion. So the dividend is increased by JPY 10 or JPY 95 per share. So the total amount of share repurchases, the JPY 50 billion and total payout ratio is 26.1%.

Moving on to shareholder benefits, XRP and other, these are the choices. As to XRP, it started in March 2020. And the weighted average of 6x, JPY 58.5 or JPY 58.8 rather, is now JPY 214.45. So that means that the unit price is now fourfold. So XRP is more effective as benefit. And then you can buy other, that will be the best scenario. This is the by segment performance.

Financial Services business, we have covered the numbers already. The breakdown, the banking business is growing very rapidly at plus 134.5%. The securities business, JPY 83.2 billion, up 14.8%; insurance, JPY 79.6 billion, plus 1,235.5%, and other. SBI Shinsei Bank, and we have banking operation in various parts of the world, not necessarily 100% stake though, but we have the big stake as big as it can be.

This is SBI Shinsei Bank's performance. On all the lines, numbers hit record highs. The ordinary business profit, JPY 156.6 billion, plus 20% profit before income tax expense, JPY 122.1 billion, up 22%; and profit attributable to owners of the company, JPY 113.4 billion, up 34%. This is on JGAAP basis. And on an IFRS basis, JPY 106.1 billion, plus 29%. So the treatment of upfront fees could make a difference between the 2 accounting basis.

SBI Shinsei Bank is growing very steadily number of customers. Now we have 4.33 million at accounts. And when they joined the group in December 2021, that 3.04 million has now increased to 4.33 million. And the total amount of deposits, JPY 17.3 trillion, and the JPY 18 trillion rather of operating assets. It was only JPY 8.1 trillion when they joined the group. Now it is JPY 18 trillion. SBI Shinsei Bank and SBI MONEY PLAZA built the joint branch, which is called SBI Shinsei Wealth Management, the product balance on April 23 exceeded finally JPY 1 trillion mark. So the asset balance is increasing very steadily.

SBI Savings Bank in Korea, the performance was up 37.8% with JPY 25 billion. It is growing very steadily. As to capital adequacy ratio, 19.75%. This is a record high number. And the delinquency rate is 4.5%. When we purchased this bank, it was 51% was the bad loans. So they have transformed itself to a high-quality bank, and they did it very soon, very quickly. Still, we -- I have decided to sell part of the stake in this bank to Kyobo Life.

And that resulted in 41.34% of the ownership of our group. Still, the economic interest is retained at 70%. And as a result of the negotiation, Nishikawa-san, legal people and CFO, Nishikawa-san did a very good job. I told him not to make too much stretch, but I'm very thankful. We still have 70% economic interest. But basically, we are going to sell it completely.

So why is that their performance is good, good recovery? Why are we going to sell the stake? But looking at the careers of the banking industry, savings bank at the bottom and on top of that, regional banks and on top of that, the city banks. And the business area allowed is strictly defined.

So that is kind of a limit. So we -- I would rather get some stake in Life company using the proceeds. So we are going to have 20% stake in Kyobo Life and now Kyobo Life is the equity method of the company and the numbers have been kind of small in the insurance sector, but with this 20% stake, now they look better.

Business portfolio is looking at our business portfolio and if there is any limit to be seen, then we make a switch to something new, more stable, more profitable business. We make a shift that way.

So now securities business, we have operations all over the world. We have various entities and securities business is growing on all line items at record highs. As you can see, the increase is 2-digit percent. And the unauthorized access-related compensation, JPY 9 billion. So we return -- we pay to those customers whose accounts were used.

And also the provision reserve for financial instruments transaction liabilities, JPY 10.5 billion, still although we hit the record highs. After ZERO Revolution, our revenues are growing very steadily.

People said with such zero commission, the SBI might not survive even in the company, some people thought that way, but Takamura-san and others did a lot of efforts and -- but we continued to grow after the evolution, quarterly profit 28.1% year-on-year growth and the other SBI Securities financial revenues are contributing greatly.

And of course, we need to think about Iran related the situation. And the open interest credit balance declined a little bit, but at JPY 2.53 trillion at a very high level. And the margin trading increased 41.1% year-on-year basis, very high level. And the SBI Securities, the investment trust fees, the other balance increased. So record high, as you can see here, investment trust fees, 42% increase year-on-year and the other quarterly investment trust balance at SBI Securities also 50.3% increase year-on-year.

So finally, we are in a world with interest rates. The BOJ continues to -- was continuing to not change rates and then the yen exceeded JPY 160 against the dollar. And then suddenly, the government intervened with the market. We're not sure if they really did it or if it was just a threat, but that was the case.

So I think at one time, it was at JPY 155 against the dollar. I think this is going to be very short term, and it would go back to JPY 160 because the problem at the root needs to be resolved to fix the weak yen issue. And the issue is because interest rates are staying the same. They're saying that around 1% is appropriate. And we're not there yet.

The government, the world wars, many things are happening, but what needs to happen needs to happen or else the weak yen situation will continue. So this is so easy to understand, and I wonder why they don't understand it. It's because the academia don't have practical experience, so they don't get it. They're not living in the world of the market. I spent 50 years in it.

We can see what's going to happen under these circumstances. So it's all about experience that Hideki Makisan is different from that point of view. Every time he sends me a book, I read it. But those people who have actual experience, the way they look at the financial world and market, their way of thinking is extremely established. So I think that person is a very rare politician. And I think he stepped down, but he's a very rare person. But in the case of the U.S., the situation is completely different.

Trump was a person who was living in the actual world, and investment is coming. He was working for hedge fund. And after Golden Week, he's going to come and visit around the 12th apparently. But this person, too, he was working together with Soros and so forth, who profited a lot in the past. So the sense that these people have and the sense that Ueda-san, our BOJ governor, has is completely different.

And the Governor of the BOJ, or the Head of the Central Bank, they shouldn't really read between the lines of the government because the governor in the U.S. is working so hard even if Trump is applying a lot of pressure on the person. So that's the kind of mentality that a governor or the Head of the Central Bank needs to have.

Also for JGBs, institutional investors are not holding that much anymore, then it would need to be sold to individual investors. They have about JPY 2,300 trillion worth of assets that are at the bank. And from the individual's point of view, which is better rates at banks or JGBs, and they feel that it's better to invest into JGBs because they were just holding it at their homes for 30 years long. So the issuance of individual JGBs are increasing and our business is expanding as well.

From July through December, in the JGB sales ranking, we have been #2. For January through March, and I think April, SBI was actually leading. The reason why this trend is happening is because in the individual market, whether it be equities or bonds, SBI Group has significantly increased the share of individual stock trading value.

So we have reached a dominant market position. We are at 63.4% for margin trading. So we are a dominant player now. So with respect to the individual business, we have dominance. When it comes to institutional, our penetration is still low. So maybe Nomura is doing better, but it's just a matter of time.

From my experience, when it comes to a broker or a securities company, you need to have both retail and wholesale, especially in the case of Japan. If it's like U.S., where the bond market is extremely advanced and sophisticated, it's different. It's very rational and streamlined.

The individual can delegate their management to an entity to have them manage their funds. However, in the case of Japan, people think by themselves and hold on to their assets. So it's slightly different in nature. So SBI Securities implemented order routing to Japannext PTS for new orders and general margin trading.

Then at once, you could see here that there has been price improvement. For who? For the customer. They don't have to pay commission now, so you could go directly here to do trading. And this is something that's obvious for the U.S. But because of the FSA in Japan, because they're supporting the TSE even now, our country is ludicrous.

NYSE, the NASDAQ and the PTSs have been establishing in a series in the U.S. and things change dramatically. However, in Japan, it's about clearing bakari. Everything is a monopoly still here in Japan. Maybe JASDEC may have reduced their commissions twice, but we're doing 0 commission, for example.

We need to be supportive of investors and be customer-centric. That's the way of management we have. And however, they are only thinking about protecting themselves by using an old system. And when you say something about it, they try to make business go down for PTSs by blocking us. I am at 75, and I don't think management should be assertive. I am not afraid of anything.

And I think even like Katayama-san, or Ito, the commissioner, they are juniors to me. JNX PTS share relative to TSE exceeds 10%. It's 11.18% as of March. As a rule, if you exceed 10%, you need to become a financial instruments exchange. There is that kind of rule that exists. So is this going to turn into an exchange? That needs to be a decision made.

So this 10% level, why was this 10%? There is no theory that supports this. They just randomly decided 10%, the TSE, the FSA or the former name, the Ministry of Finance decided this rule. So that can change to like 20% instead. They should just change the rules. But of course, if we -- this can turn into an exchange, that's great. The state-of-the-art exchange can be established, and it can be everything on chain. That is a possibility.

So the number of security accounts at the SBI Group surpasses 16 million for the first time in the industry. As of May 1, we have exceeded 16 million. Nomura is at 6.095 million or 6.09 million. CAGR-wise, you start from here, which is March 2009, and the CAGR was only 1.8%. That leads up to March '26, the compound annual growth rate, our CAGR was 13.4%. We can grow even more. AUM has now reached JPY 66.1 trillion as of the fourth quarter. And the ZERO Revolution started here. We continue to see growth. And we were projecting out before the start of the ZERO Revolution and things have turned out to be exactly as we have anticipated.

Rakuten Securities is at 50.3%. There is a big difference. Thoroughly promote the deepening of open alliances and expansion of overseas businesses to grow the business foundation of the securities business. So we are promoting an alliance with SMBC Group, and we will make this even deeper and add new schemes to grow it even more. We will also continue to grow the business foundation and the overseas business as well.

For SMBC, we are centered on the promotion of the alliance with fusion of digital and face-to-face services. We do believe it was a really good alliance even from our side and their side. The Olive project, thanks to this, from March '22 to March '26, CAGR was, for the number of financial intermediary accounts, it grew by 110.7%. We are currently at 1.85 million accounts.

Sumitomo Mitsui Card accumulation investment, the monthly accumulation is now exceeding JPY 100 billion. When you look at the age of users, the younger generation, which is from their teens to 30s account for half of the users.

And this -- maybe if the taxes can become lower or if this can be tax-free because this is asset formation, if the government can extend more support, that would be great, or we could give back to the younger generation.

It's really important to give back to a certain party because there's a lot of taxation. And we are the worst country with respect to the way the taxes are being used because it's very big in how it's being used.

There is a random way of using the taxes just because they want votes, when it comes to religious entities, they are not taxed. And they also have Cabinet Secretary at Seeker Funds. And I'm not sure what the Komeito is doing, but nowadays, I do believe there has been some heavens judgment in place.

So full utilization of NISA-Tsumitate quota of JPY 110,000 is common. So they should raise this amount when it comes to -- there's a lot of individual financial assets, and they want to transfer it from deposits to here. I think there's many people that are thinking about it. And all of consulting, SMBC will start this service. This is an in-person consulting service, which is going to start from May.

I do believe this is going to generate huge results as well. And SMBC NTT, they are our major shareholders that hold the same amount, which is at 8.2%. And with NTT and our relationship, I do believe it has turned out to be a good, great relationship. It's a matter of their technological capabilities and how they can be leveraged for our business, we are looking into it.

And from various point of views, we are trying to see how things can develop. So finance really needs technology, and that is why the word fintech was established. And Web3 and IOWN technology, this also, in many ways, can be utilized. For example, transaction speed can become expedited as much as possible. Or power usage at exchanges can be conserved substantially. And regional finance and financial digital transformation. We would like to leverage NTT Group's financial digital transformation as much as possible.

If I announce anything, I will shock people. So I'm not going to say anything, but we have been working on creating various businesses for the future. SBI Securities is proactively developing its global institutional investor business to expand its sources of revenue worldwide. We didn't have presence in London, in the Netherlands either. However, in main cities around the world, now we have presence, and we are striving to globalize our finance business. And if there are any big finance deals, we would like to ensure that we target these markets.

For the institutional investor business, when you look at the trends in institutional investor trading value comparing against fiscal '21, in 5 years, we were able to grow by 3x. And for business revenue for institutional investors comparing against fiscal '21, we have been able to double the business in 5 years. So we have been able to steadily grow the business.

Next is insurance business. All were record highs and also for dividends. It's about the double of last fiscal year over this short period of time. So we have been able to steadily grow the business. So the people from the government, I often say this, but for those people who have stepped down and became a corporate adviser of some company or a corporate adviser, or became a professor at a given university, I wouldn't say it's a waste of time, but we are short of competent people.

Therefore, I always call upon them to come to us, especially young people who are working at the government. They know a lot of people. So I have been recommending this. For a person who has experience at the Ministry of Finance, they work really hard, seriously. They have been engaged with the budgeting processes.

It's quite challenging. And during the Diet sessions, all the politicians, they make all their jobs to be done by the governmental offices. So the young people are no longer interested in becoming a public official nowadays because of these reasons. They often go to consulting firms in the past or a foreign capital broker. Nowadays, gradually. For example, you never know when a consulting firm is going to be gone due to the evolution of AI. That's where we are nowadays.

For AI agents and the evolution of AI, it's going to change the nature of a job dramatically, definitely. Sales force, things like that, we're not going to need it anymore. I've been saying at the previous results meeting that we're not going to hire new people unless they are confident. But there are people who do continue to join our company. They may have been at Sales force before and/or at a consulting firm, but they are being fired, although they were competent.

We can hire them as an analyst to work for the securities company. We believe we can offer opportunities for them to grow even more, and that will be a win-win situation. However, jobs like analysts, because of AI, if you have 3 different types of AI lined up together and ask the same question, you can refer to the answers and pick the answer you prefer or compare and verify what's missing from the responses.

But I think recently, when it comes to new employees and their reports, the quality of their reports are becoming better that they write once every 2 weeks. So that's why I've been doing the same thing by using AI, and I'm now able to identify who's using AI. I actually cross-check it.

You really need to think with your own brains. AI is just help, but you need to deepen your thought process by leveraging the power of AI or else, your brain will always be inferior to that of AI. The total number of in-force contracts of SBI Insurance Group end of March 2016 to the end of March '26, CAGR has been 12.3%.

During the same period of time, when you look at Dai-ichi Life, it was 7.1%, and Nippon Life, what was that? It was only 7.1% and 2.8%, respectively, which means for large insurance companies, their business opportunity in the Japanese market is already at saturation. For us, we believe we can still grow.

The reason is because our insurance premiums are far lower if you do it online. That is why our growth rates are far higher. So for the major players, if they want to grow their business, all they can do is resort to overseas markets. However, when the yen is so weak, going abroad may lead to the next loss. Even for life insurance companies, there has been various issues that have occurred. They are carrying too many JGBs. So they need to take care of them.

And when you have evaluation losses, the evaluation losses are quite substantial. Globally, when you look at this, under the international accounting standards or any type of global accounting standard, the image of their business will change. Same thing applies for banking as well. This goes back to my earlier point about the holdings of Kyobo Life. We now have 20.4%.

And with the acquisition, what we were targeting was, of course, when you compare the insurance business, the numbers -- I compare the numbers first, and I also was looking at total assets at JPY 16 trillion. It's 1 of the 3 major insurance companies in South Korea, and their profit base is JPY 82.7 billion. Warren Buffet, when he started the asset management business, he started off in acquiring life insurance companies.

Long term assets of life insurers are attractive. And in our case, at Asakura-san, we are currently at JPY 13 trillion, but our target is JPY 20 trillion. The next target is JPY 50 trillion. I want to bring it up to JPY 100 trillion eventually. Of course, with respect to the methodology, the 2 of us have discussions to come up with ways to grow the asset base.

If we want to grow by a certain extent, it will be acquisitions. ORIX, I think, acquired Robeco at a very good timing. And what I was very impressed about was, in 2 years, what ORIX did was they sold it by JPY 370 billion to Daiwa. There were some offers to us as well, but I was questioning that deal. However, I think -- I guess Daiwa is confident about turning the business around. But if it's a company that no one was interested in buying, there must be an issue with it. The person, the seller, there's a reason why they want to sell it. When I want to buy something, I will do a survey as to why they want to sell the business. And I also think about how much synergies can be generated as well.

You need to do a thorough research of that or else you won't be able to generate good results. For example, 25% acquisition of Aozora Bank. What kind of results can be generated? I'm not bad-mouthing Daiwa, but I try to apply an analyst-like approach. I've never seen a press coverage that Aozora was doing well and office demand in the U.S. was going down and people were thinking that there will be more valuation losses.

So I was wondering what's likely to happen. So the synergies, in what way, is it going to be extracted? For example, for Daiwa Next Securities and the synergies with the bank, they haven't been able to generate that much. Daiwa Next Securities and SBI Shinsei Bank, how much is that generating profits? When you compare the 2, it's quite different.

So the asset management business, I talked about this earlier. We have been able to build up assets and global assets are at record highs for 14th consecutive fiscal years of revenue growth and 17 consecutive fiscal years of ordinary profit growth, being able to consecutively grow your earnings base by more than 10x is quite impressive.

For asset management, AUM exceeded JPY 12 trillion. By the end of 2030 March, we would like to bring it up to JPY 50 trillion. It's a commitment by Asakura-san. And I would like to help them as much as possible through acquisitions and so forth. And in various ways through the securities business by selling funds, I hope this could help this business.

So we would like to -- I would like to support them in growing the business. However, in the investment trust industry, now we are at #9. Nomura will be celebrating its 100th anniversary soon. We are only at 26th or the 27th year, but we are at this level.

For this page, everybody is surprised when they see this page. When I show this in English to English speakers, PIMCO, AllianceBernstein, State Street, they are the traditional joint ventures, active and index and alternatives. The Man Group, the London Company, KKR, everybody else, Franklin Templeton, they have strength in digital ETF.

So we have a close relationship with these people. These people, Takamura-san's team is able to engage in their business because of these alliances. We have exceeded JPY 2 trillion of assets. It's already been exceeding JPY 2.5 trillion. The PIMCO people were really happy. Doug Hodge was the CEO back then, but then there was a change to a new CEO.

I'm always here, but every time the CEO visits, well, PIMCO used to have zero joint ventures, but we were able to persuade the Doug Hodge in establishing the JV, which led to a great success. So everybody is connected here in this world. The Franklin's CEO, Jenny and Robin of Man are there both ladies, but they get along. They know each other. When we go to Saudi Arabia, we have been talking the other day that we should have dinner together, the 3 of us.

So this is the joint venture with State Street. They were established in 1792, and their AUM is USD 5.6 trillion, that's JPY 890 trillion, and they're the world's fourth largest. So this is utilizing AI agent in all business segments. And we need to hurry up and manage this on the asset management side as well. So they are actually doing this independently as well. So even at wealth advisers, they're using AI agents for asset management, and they're showing a very nice performance.

And then PE investment. So just with PE investment, we have an outstanding balance of JPY 1 trillion. So we are #1 private equity company in Japan. It's not about JAFCO and all of that, it's totally out of the question and all the foreign investors know that. So this is IPOs and M&As of SBI Group's investee companies.

You can see our prospects for 2026. And I think '27, we will exclude that. So private equity, we have exceeded JPY 1 trillion. Actually, it's JPY 1.1 trillion in AUM. So this is part of our PE investment, Ripple. It's 0.9% or so, and they will burn it. So when they continue to burn it, our ratio will automatically go above 10%.

Now what's been circulated in the market today, as you can see, and of course, it changes day-to-day, but it's approximately JPY 14.2 trillion. And in terms of actual, so the actual is held by Ripple, and they have holdings under escrow. So what's in circulation -- excuse me, what's not in circulation is equivalent to JPY 8.8 trillion. So if this becomes -- is listed or becomes circulated, then this is the amount that we will get and no one will complain about that.

The price is already determined. And so this is not all about the value either. Ripple, they copied us because I said they should build an ecosystem within this current crypto currency, I said a crypto asset. I said that to Chris, who is the founder. And I don't know if this is the end result of that, but there's no doubt that I recommended it, and I remember that they agreed to that.

And so they started with Metaco and there are some that are public, not public. But basically, they continue to pursue acquisitions from prime brokers to market makers. So they have a sizable amount in the ecosystem of this cryptocurrency. It's quite remarkable. And then they have -- this is our treasury business. They have asked us to invest. And so we paid out JPY 32 billion. I think Chris Larsen may pay out some cash a little bit and Ripple Bitcoin, but this will be listed on SPAC.

And Form S-4 has been filed to SEC on March 18, and we will resubmit with an amended Form S-4 in April 7. So we're making a steady progress towards listing. And once it's listed, and let's say we -- and there will be clarity in probably May, and we are seeing a good prospect and all the reasons they would oppose to it has been discussed through.

And the Trump family owns a lot of cryptocurrency. And this is against ethics the fact that the President is promoting this and they own -- the family owns a large amount is strange. So there's an argument about that.

And maybe he could -- they could just donate half of that. That's all they need to do really. Mr. Trump, he doesn't get paid as a President right now. And so here's the crypto asset business. So again, pretax profit is record high.

And of course, there's an impact from the valuation gains recognized in third quarter, but even amidst the market downturn, it remains at a high level. So this is number of accounts held by SBI VC Trade. So it's 1.92 million accounts. So people talk about the bitFlyer, Coincheck, but Mercari are gathering all these smaller accounts, and maybe they are. Mercari is maybe at the top perhaps. But we put aside all these little ones.

And we acquired DMM Bitcoin here and now it's over here. And on top of that, we will combine with BitBank. I think it's announced today. So this is a company that belongs to Mr. Hirose. So they have 960,000 accounts. So they're above bitFlyer. So if they are behind the market, they will only be Mercari.

But what's important is AUM here, assets under custody, which is JPY 570 billion. And my basic policy is to become #1 in all aspects. So we will continue to build up on #1 in every category. And as a whole, we will become #1.

And of course, here's the shareholder benefit programs. During the Morningstar days, they started this business, and we followed right away, and we wanted to do this at the holdings level. And now we're beginning to see a number of customers who want to use this as a shareholders' benefit programs.

So many companies are now utilizing crypto assets. And in our case, it's 4x as much. Morningstar, we started XRP. It's is about 6 to 7x now. And also cryptoasset treasury companies, you can see a number of companies who are already doing these treasury -- crypto asset treasury business. If they do this, then they will trade, so they will become a large volume client.

So they are key customers, prospect customers from our point of view. Next-gen business. So Web 3.0 or Web3, excuse me, related business. Mynavi is very successful. We have only 20% as an equity method affiliate, but it's already generating JPY 5.2 billion as equity in earnings of affiliates, very grateful. And we have validator rewards -- we have some super validators, and we are able to also gain rewards from that. So that's the key to become profitable.

So now the key topic here is 3 key strategy objectives. For the sustainable growth of corporate value and performance, as a subtitle, I've written strategy is everything. Since I have been involved in management, if people ask me, what is my reason for success, for winning, it's strategy. Strategy is everything. And what is strategy? Many scholars say many different things.

They say it's about building a position that achieves sustainable competitive advantage to be to succeed in competition, theory and organization activity within the market, a long-term fundamental blueprint for an organization activities in the market.

Some people say very academic things, but it's basically a mechanism to win. It's a concept to win. And when we -- in the past, when we talked about strategy, it's really about winning a war, right? So this is, for example, Sun Tzu.

So when we say corporate value, I think it's about strategic value. Now corporate value in an ordinary sense is shareholder value here. So this is the total amount of cash flows generated over the long term to the shareholders and also the cash flow amount that will be offered to the creditors and you deduct that by present value or discount that by present value. So this is the corporate value in an ordinary sense.

What is my corporate value? I think it's made out of customer value, shareholder value, human capital value. When you have the people, human capital, you will be able to exercise creativity. So I think it's the source of creativity or it is the greatest factor for bringing about differentiation. That's human capital. What is customer value?

Customer purchases or perform something. It is the consideration against the goods and services that's offered to the customers. So this is SBI corporate value, my value. And on top of that, SBI -- now often people criticize us as a conglomerate discount. They don't really study very much about our company.

But conglomerate discount is about the 1980s where a company was buying when companies are unrelated to the business one after another in order to just simply increase EPS and they continue to increase that into 1980s. And then in the '90s, they began to fail.

So we have to think about conglomerate discount. But that's wrong because many scholars have actually studied this. But if you have companies that have strong correlations, then you will be able to exercise synergies.

And if you build an entity that's based on that, you will be able to increase value. And even it's in the book called Roberto, he's a scholar from Harvard Business School, and there's a very typical classical paper on this literature on this, but this is an idea that I was quite convinced by. But it's not just that, it's also based on management philosophy and strategy grounded in long-term perspective.

So this is a strategic value. So what I have been generating over the years is strategic value. It's based on grounded in long-term perspective. 10 years ago, acquiring Ripple, who would have done that? And even after the acquisition, they had some lawsuits. I never sold any of the shares. We continue to hold on to it.

So it's about what will the world be in 10 years later, 20 years later. It's the ability to foresee that. It's about visionary. It's being able to have an insight and discerning power. So it is company's management philosophy and long-term strategy that determines its future value. And management philosophy has always been customer-centric.

Since the foundation, I have been very thorough about promoting technology. I have always said public interest will -- is, first and foremost, before private interest. And corporate is an existence of the society and the business has to be good for the society and for the people. I have always called out that philosophy and trying to implement that.

And that's the reason why we're still here today. I believe -- I truly believe so. I've been reading a lot of books, but one of the books that I have really thought was true was a book written by Duggan. And when I was trying to take business management classes at Columbia, I came to read this book.

And he taught us about strategic intuition. And he says that strategic intuition refers to the ability to synthesize accumulating knowledge from the past with a wealth of experiences and to instantly recombine that in mind to discover solutions to new problems.

So I have this enormous amount of reading that I do and also my enormous amount of knowledge and experiences. And with that, I am able to make instant decisions and judgments. So based on this intuition, as a founder, I will implement appropriate strategy at an appropriate timing. And then I will hand it over to those who will take over.

So the strategy that I will mention after this, all 3 of them can only be implemented by a founding founder. I don't think a salaried CEO will not be able to do this because I am the founder and I am the top management, and that is why I'm able to make that decision. And I think that decision is to be made now.

So that is why I am making this into a strategy. The structure follows strategy is the words of Chandler, a very old word. So you will follow the intuition. Meanwhile, you create an organization. So what is my 3 key strategic objections? One is to become completely AI-driven transformation.

The other is organization transformation toward on-chain finance, providing next-generation financial services ahead of the rest of the world. And Number 3 is integrate the NeoMedia ecosystem into the existing financial ecosystem and digital space ecosystem, which is already emerging. So through that, we will be able to dramatically expand our customer base in and out of Japan.

And only I can do within this group. If someone -- how can someone suddenly one day build a NeoMedia and do something like this? Who could say this and who could actually make the investment for that and run an organization and build an organization? Who will be able to do that?

I was speaking to Mr. Yasuda from PPIH Donki. I think this dialogue became an interview book. And there were some commonalities as founders. We shared views, same views. So first strategic objective, one on decisively implementing a complete AI-driven transformation. So JPMorgan Chase in September 2025 announced AI blueprint. They said they will transform into a world's fully AI-powered mega bank. So they said that in September 2025 first. No one has been able to do that before. And maybe I'm slightly behind them, but we think the same.

And of course, I have some influences of Mr. Song as I came to think this way. And it's not just about implementing AI tools, but the bank business process itself will be redesigned with AI at the center. This is what JPMorgan Chase is trying to do. And this is personalized AI assistant, AI-driven process, AI concierge. We will attach all of these to make all the operational efficiencies higher. This is the 3 pillars of implementing AI, and expected effect is to become a checker from becoming a maker. So it will be made by AI, but humans will become a checker. And checker is actually -- can be generated by AI agent. So what do we do?

Well, we will basically consolidate everything, orchestrate everything and set out to a certain direction. Maybe an AI can orchestrate. Some people would say that. But would an organization run with AI? So this is something that humans would have to do. And here's some potential workforce reductions. So you can see that from the banks in America.

This is Commerzbank in Germany. So they have implemented this after pilot operation in 2024. And they also built AI avatar and they have drastically improved customer service efficiency. And they have approximately 75% completely autonomous function without human intervention. So it's a high self-resolution rate, and 24/7 operation. This goes without saying. So you do not need people. If you had people, if you hired people, you won't be able to do it. It can execute complex tasks.

The test result of the University of Tokyo, AI was able to do perfectly, a perfect score. So the world is changing. In the past, people used to say that in 2045, technological singularity will come. That's what they used to say. But not even 2045, it will be in 2030. Maybe it's already here now. In other words, the capabilities of AI has drastically exceeded the humankind. So what should human beings do?

So what should we do? The AI should not take the prime, the leadership position. Well, AI would be able to do that, but the final decision should be made by AI (sic) [ humans ]. So in a limited area, and also the workflow will be consigned totally to AI, we are going to do that as well.

So Claude Mythos has a strong impact in the financial world. But, of course, the vulnerability was becoming a problem. And very early, we started to work on that, how to discover the vulnerability. So we have not used the Mythos of Anthropic yet, but in order to avoid it, we need to use it first. And we do check it and we implement the systems. That will be the wisest way.

And are we going to be allowed to do that? Not quite. There are some limitations. The Mythos is now being used only by the defense purpose and so on. So what should we do then? Fortunately, we could find a very good company, one of the investee companies. And it's a Korean company strong in the validation of the vulnerability, EVERSPIN. We are going to implement it group-wide. To have legacy system, you have lots of unknown vulnerability. So legacy system has now already come to its limits. And financial crimes and fraud, the accounts are misused or are being used without authority. How can it be avoided?

Well, for example, implementation of new systems is one, and also autonomous AI used to deal with increasing cyber-attacks and so on. Under such circumstances, we had to decide on the strategic guideline. And in doing that, our own staff alone is not good enough. So from our investee companies, the very best in this area and a top person of that company has been invited. Ridge-i was established on July 29, 2016. It's about Mr. Takashi Yanagihara, the excellent person who will join us.

So in the past, all you had to do is to procure technology from someplace else. So the process was to invest and then implement and then expand. That was good enough. Not anymore. So what should we do? We have been thinking about it, and then Takamura-san came up with this, Yanagihara-san and his company. So we have been investing already into their company. It's a public company, in the past. I liked it right away -- I liked him right away. So as outside director, we invite him. And in deciding our strategic guideline, we'd like to leverage his expertise.

And here is what I have announced, develop AI agents capable of autonomously providing optimal financial experiences for everyone. So to realize this guideline is, of course, develop global financial AI concierge. Going forward, everything should be global. So now whether it is the Bitcoin or the XRP or stablecoin, they're all global. Stablecoin is becoming global. So in this new era, we need to think about globally AI x Web3, build an autonomous economic ecosystem. Autonomous is a very important concept. We are strong both in AI and Web3, and that helps us and deliver seamless services from recognition to trust and rapidly advancing the transition to an AI native autonomous organization.

So develop global financial AI concierge. How are we going to do it? In short, AI concierge is to remove any concerns or the decision-making and the difficulties from customers. So based on information, AI concierge will come up with optimal portfolio for you, for optimal asset formation, proposes and executes optimal portfolios of financial assets, and AI agents that consider and propose financial actions aligned with each customer's interests and financial literacy level. So agents understand customers and make proposals. That's important. And global financial infrastructure that transcends barriers of language, laws, and regulations.

Regulations, financial regulations are all defined country by country. If there's anything to change it, it will be in the cryptocurrency world. Everywhere, it's Bitcoin. Everywhere globally, XRP can be used. And as Mr. Trump categorically denies, Central Bank digital currency is difficult. It's the same thing. On the inside, it might facilitate a few things, but the inside/outside, that relationship would not change that way. We are going to provide the best user experience.

Now, building autonomous economic ecosystem through AI and Web3, combining Web3 and crypto assets with AI to create new value. So the AI optimized transaction systems, co-creation of AI and smart contracts, AI monitoring and accountability. Please pay attention to those expressions in red color.

So deliver seamless services from recognition to trust. Know, decide, and trust, everything. That's important. This is not something that the SBI Group alone can achieve. We need to achieve in collaboration with AX and Web3 top players. That's why we are making so much investment in overseas. So lots of investment at this timing when yen is so weak. So overseas investment involves dollar-based investment.

Yesterday, at around 1:00 in the morning, I thought, oh, that's a shame if I did not do what I would have done at SoftBank. Because when the yen appreciates, should buy dollar. The JPY 6 billion was the profit that I earned that way. Asakura-san is with a lot of data on hand, doing trading day and night, and remittance is made. And that period is very important, and I thought that I could have done better.

The need is the mother of the invention. But now I'm 75 years old, and there are so many things to do. So using AI, we need to do both offensive and defensive. And for that, for the whole group, we should be AI-driven. That means that I delegate my authorities to Strategic Headquarters reporting directly to me, and also the group's vast financial data and computing resources are to be centrally managed. And we will make full conversion of operations into AI agents and transform the value chain into an AI native one. And we will achieve major transformation of the cost structure and create new revenue sources.

As to security measures, SBI EVERSPIN black-box test, white-hat hacker verification and the continuous monitoring and analysis by SOC, we will combine the governance and unified controls against AI attacks. We are going to do all that on a group level, and we are writing some contracts for that. Eversafe. On a group-wide basis, we are adopting Eversafe, the vulnerability assessment. The password changes automatically in dynamic way. And by using the AI, we are going to be strong structurally speaking against cyberattacks.

So calling on the top management of the 3 largest banks, Katayama-san, Ms. Katayama did talk to them. And that kind of thing, we did not achieve anything. I'm wondering what they are thinking. We need to face our business very, very seriously to have good results. You bet your life. Yasuda-san, DPI, is the same. He's in the Stage 4 of the lung cancer. I'm trying to help him on the medical aspect as well. He's still doing business, writing books and acquiring companies. His book, Un or Fate, is a really good book.

So here it says, deploy code level AI auto reviews to development process and sequential implementation and so on. So Yanagihara-san -- we are going to set the AI security standards formulation as the core of the AI strategy, led by Yanagihara-san at the Strategic Headquarters. I am saying clearly that you need to move fast. This is the very last decision that I can make as the top person. So you should do it. You should execute those strategies. If you are not going to do it, you have to leave. You are expected to support such evolution of the company.

So decisively implement organization transformation toward on-chain finance, providing next-generation financial services ahead of the rest of the world. Token economy. Every asset will be tokenized on chain. Transaction is completed on chain. So the application is on the WWW, the site. That is already gone. I've been saying, say, for 10 years or so, I have been talking about the importance of blockchain.

And to change society, I thought that the blockchain will play a bigger role than the AI. And more and more people are in agreement with me. Blockchain or DLT, the decentralized network is now expanding. The Web3 on-chain should be achieved. If it remains off-chain, the volume of transaction increases and gas charge increases, and that will constrain transaction. So that should be changed. So that is to have layer 2 on the top of layer 1. By using smart contracts adequately on the blockchain, the transactions are processed automatically. I've been thinking about Ethereum with smart contract is really great and others are doing the same now. The tokens are utilized for both transactions and settlements. Such token economy era is starting. One of my books, Tokenized Economy, that's the English version title, Tokenized Economy, my book is now welcomed very warmly.

Now TradFi, traditional finance, and DeFi, decentralized finance, specific examples of the convergence of TradFi and DeFi in the West. So traditional finance and the new finance world in the picture of the finance. We need to integrate or converge these 2. That's the basic idea. So New York Stock Exchange has already started the work toward the launch of tokenized stock services. They have already announced the platform development for trading tokenized securities, and announced in March investment in OKX, and NASDAQ has also made similar announcement. So new platform is about U.S.-listed stocks, ETFs, 24/7 trading, and immediate settlement. And fractional share trading, less than 1 share trading is also possible. It's Stablecoin comparable and it is integrated with existing infrastructure, and it is supporting payment and custody functions. Those new things are happening.

The TSE is still kind of sleeping. The PTS, they are changing the small changes for the scale. That is putting lots of securities firms into trouble. We do not care about the changing in scales. Robinhood, the newly established securities firm, they are already developing the new platform development and they're advocating transition from traditional securities up to blockchain-based global next-gen financial platform. So tokenization enables 24/5 trading. And in the future, it will be transitioned to 24/7. Like crypto assets and small-scale investment, fractional share trading from EUR 1 is possible. The number of handled stocks expanded tenfold from about 200 to 2,000.

Initially, they issued on Arbitrum, an Ethereum Layer 2 chain. But in the future, Robinhood -- well, there's a talk about joint venture with Robinhood. I give a lot of thought to it before all kinds of these announcements. But using our capability and making profit without expanding their own customer base, that is the impression that I got back then. So I decided not to go for joint venture with them.

Now accelerate structural transformation toward the financial infrastructure, integrating AI agents into on-chain finance. So this integration is extremely important. When it comes to institutional investors, they can make direct access to on-chain. But individuals or the SMEs, they need to have the intermediary companies involved. And of course, now using AI agents, individuals can make access to the market directly. So AI agent and on-chain are very closely connected. You need to do both, and that's the key.

And very early, we started to think about it. So in the digital space ecosystem, we put both of them. Agents transact with each other. In such a world, transaction will increase dramatically. And then without on-chain, you cannot do anything in that kind of world. So on-chain is a must for high-speed, high-volume transaction world. And the AI agent reward payments will be very, very small. It will be micro payments. So that means that will increase transactions as well. So you need to do both.

When it comes to individuals, they cannot follow the development of such world. It should be institutional, big institutions or the experts. But the SMEs who have good technology, the mega technology companies used to be small companies, and before you know it, now they have become big companies. So transition from finance where customers struggle to make choices to the provision of finance entrusted to reliable AI agents. So now AI make choices for you instead of you making choices. So we are going to provide safe and reliable agents to our customers. So if you become our customers, you will benefit from the special segment to give very detailed explanation to you.

Now progress in developing frameworks for the expansion of on-chain finance, both in Japan and overseas. Now one more step to go for the enactment of Clarity Act. Once it is enacted, digitalization will be accelerated and tokenization will be accelerated. As to stablecoin, now GENIUS Act has already been enacted. So that's a green light for stablecoin and the Clarity Act should also be enacted. In Japan, in amended Payment Services Act, now stable coins are defined as electronic payment instruments and issues are limited to banks, fund transfer service providers and trust companies.

So there are some constraints on the tax side. To me, it's a very stupid taxation. 55% as the miscellaneous tax. That's impossible. And of course, the separate taxation is to be applied -- should be applied. And now it is in the picture. ETF has not been changed yet. The ETF cryptocurrency -- crypto asset ETF should be allowed to do -- made a very strong message to Katayama-san. And also, I'm going to ask Mr. Bessent to make a strong message about it to the Japanese authorities.

Now SBI Group's initiatives toward on-chain finance. I talked about this earlier. For the ecosystem for digital space and financial ecosystem, many things will be traded under TradFi as well. And also for the trust bank, it will become increasingly important. Therefore, Shinsei Trust & Banking changed its name to SBI Shinsei Trust & Banking. And SBI Holdings holdings ratio is now 49%. So with respect to the rules about exceeding 1 million and so forth, we won't be subject to it. We will be able to do a fund transfer now, which is type 3. And VC Trade as well, it continues to expand, and growth on both ends and their evolution can be connected together through VC Trade.

For Startale, we have decided to work together with them. The founder of Startale, Sota Watanabe, has also become one of our independent directors from June, at the AGM, if he's appointed that is, but I'm sure he will be approved. The shift to on-chain, we will do this thoroughly by leveraging his expertise, and we will have 2 JVs that are going to be established. One will be led by him, which is a development company, and the other will be led by ourselves, which is a marketing company.

Even more, we will invest approximately USD 50 million into Startale and making it into an equity method associate with 20% ownership. For yen-denominated stablecoins and Layer 1 blockchain, we will be doing joint developments. We have agreed upon that. Developments are steadily underway. And as of June, the stablecoins will be ready for approval submit application. It will be the first trust type and it will not be subject to the fund transfer rules of 1 million of a limit in remittances and holdings. And we would like to target a launch as early as the first quarter of this fiscal year.

Yen-denominated stablecoins, there are some that have come out, but volume has been small. So it's not impactful. Of course, attempting to do so, I think, is something that I admire. But sometimes I feel that I should buy them out because they're so small. So they gave me a high price, so I decided not to. But Asakura-san met this entity, right?

But in any case, on-chain trading of all financial assets. For all types of tokenized securities, real-world assets, we would like to make everything be enabled to be traded online, on-chain, and try to make it flexible as possible, so that we can provide liquidity. And between AI agents, there will be a time when they start trading between each other. So we need to be able to respond to those times. And we will pursue a vertical integration strategy in digital finance.

What do we mean by that? We need to integrate all of these items. That will enable us to leverage competitive advantage. And I think this is the only way to do so. We have everything, by the way. And last year, in August, with SMBC, we jointly developed a stablecoin. And this alliance has been released. But by the FSA, we were asked to join another group, but we opposed. But for SMBC, we made it already. So we asked them, maybe you can join them. I said that to Nakashima-san.

For the multi-chain strategy, for example, Rakuten, what they're doing, it has to be Rakuten Points, it has to be XNX points. For us, we don't have any specific choice. We're open, whether it be gas fees, there's all different types here, but we would like to promote a multichain strategy, so that we could be compliant to everything.

What I think is promising right now is Solana. We own 90% of B2C2, and they announced a partnership with Solana Foundation with respect to one of settlement networks for stablecoin transactions. And R3 is an American company we have invested into. They are now going to be acquired by Solana. So in that respect, we now have various connections with Solana. So we would like to put importance on this important relationship as well. And also Canton Network, we are a super validator, and we have a voice. So by using the Canton Network, Mizuho, Nomura, and the Japan Securities Clearing Corporation was doing something. But from long ago, we have been working together with this entity to support our relationship, so that it can expand both domestically and internationally.

My way of thinking is big, it's global. Therefore, I have been working on Singapore as well. We're going Hawk as well, which is the biggest exchange in the country. In Singapore, our affiliates already have a total of 5 licenses that are key. Because of the circumstances in the Middle East right now, the companies that used to be in Dubai are coming back to Singapore, and there are some companies that are coming back from Abu Dhabi as well. For Dubai, there was a building, a skyscraper that was attacked and was burning. There was some imagery of that, that was on air. So you never know what's going to happen during a war. To that end, it's quite scary. We did open an office in Dubai. But for the time being, we decided not to operate there. So it's more going to be about focusing on Singapore.

For Abu Dhabi, whether it be Abu Dhabi or Venezuela, those countries or regions will start to drop out from the OPEC. So within the Arabian countries, how are they going to decide oil prices going forward? And for the future of Arabian countries, how are they going to change the economic circumstances? That will be an area we'll be looking at. Singapore is a small country. But because of that nature, they've been working to serve as a hub to become a financial center by relaxing various types of regulations. So that's the place they are. So we would like to take advantage of these circumstances.

And for on-chain asset management platform, I talked about asset management earlier, but actually, for DigiFT, it's a Singaporean company. It's the world's first ETF on-chain company. They now have a JV in Japan. So upon developing products in Japan, Sota Watanabe, his company can work together with this entity. That's what we are thinking about.

Key player in the group's digital strategy. SBI VC Trade strives to expand its functions. First step of that is launching a USDC lending service. It's with a joint venture with Circle. By using their USDC, lending service was launched. Annual rate will start initially from 10%. People will obviously come to us if it's at 10% annually. I want to make it fund moving, meaning I want to move the funds of individuals. And also 3-month term time deposits of U.S. dollar foreign currencies. When you look at this, we will be taking away business from Kawashima-san's team. Of course, they need to evolve as well, so we'll have to deal with that. However, it's cannibalization, it's about coordinating between our companies and then businesses. That's my job. Whether it be a new bank or a new product development, we'll need to work on that. Although they may be both within our group, they need to both continue to evolve or else.

For banking or securities companies, it's just a matter of how we allocate our portfolio. How much is it going to go into equities? How much is going to go into bank deposits? It's about building your portfolio. For SBI VC Trade, it strives to obtain a money-lending business license. If we get the license, we would like to provide Japanese yen loans to customers using crypto assets as collateral. That will be possible. SBI Shinsei Bank, SBI SECURITIES, and SBI VC Trade, we're thinking about a triangle scheme. If the trust bank can be profitable, 51% is owned by the bank, the revenue allocation can be done automatically. I need to think about that from my point of view and design the entire group. Aplus, we will have a pilot program in May for in-store payments using USDC. At stores, foreigners will be able to use or spend USDCs to buy something. That's the world that is likely to spread.

Promoting various initiatives toward the implementation of stablecoin payments. U.S. dollar settlements in Japan. Cross-border EC is about JPY 400 billion from Japan to the U.S. Consumption by U.S. visitors to Japan in 2025 was about JPY 1.1 trillion. Corporate digital related service payments to North America in 2024, this was big at around JPY 8 trillion through delivery versus a payment which is instant payment upon delivery, and reduction of intermediary margins such as FX spreads, and also eliminating the need for pre-funding. 24/7 realization of T+0 settlement are the things we would like to achieve through stablecoins. And we made this announcement today with Visa. We concluded an MOU for strategic collaboration in the digital finance space. We're considering utilizing USDC and Japanese yen stablecoins for credit card settlements and payments.

And for the card business, issuing SBI Visa Crypto Cards that allows for accumulating crypto assets. Just by using your credit card, you will be able to save crypto assets. I would like to start to accelerate my presentation because of time. Seeking to enhance card payments through the utilization of stablecoins, the issuer, the acquirer, whether it be US dollars or Japanese yen at merchants, it will change into the currency of choice. On the back of that, automatically, autonomously, FX exchange can be enabled through the system we are striving to build, a global stablecoin settlement scheme. Yen-denominated stablecoins and USD-denominated stablecoins, we would like to create this kind of system.

DigiFT, through the JV, we strive to issue RWA tokens. I talked about this earlier, 60-40, SBI Onchain was a company that has been established. The second SBI Group initiative is this slide. For the overseas heads, from 20-something countries from around the world, heads get together, and we are going to have a conference in August this year. Long ago, CITIC, when we were trying to go into China, we borrowed their venue from CITIC, and we had our executive meeting there. And starting off from there, we started to do many initiatives in China.

Strategic objective number three, integrate the neo-media ecosystem into the existing financial ecosystem and digital space ecosystem, and expand the group customer base both domestically and internationally dramatically. Mr. Hirata, formerly executive vice president of Nikkei, we will be appointing him as an independent outside director. For the new media ecosystem, we did an interim update of this the other time, so there's nothing much to add.

The boxing thing, there was a lot of reaction on that. Page views shot up to several hundreds of thousands. So Naoya Inoue, who's the star of boxing, I was amazed to see his influence in the political world of the U.S. The reason why people from Hollywood, they're trying to draw close to Hollywood is because stars have influence on voting outcome. With Naoya Inoue and what we did with him, our confidence became stronger. From Saudi Arabia, the funding money was JPY 3.5 billion, and I think they're going to do it again in Saudi Arabia. That was great to expand the customer base. That was proven.

I'm going to skip this page. So you can see this from 1 through 9 different sectors and different fields, and then from 10 to 18. On May 19th, we are scheduled to have SBI Neo-Media Summit. And there I will speak. In between, by then, we expect to have 3 or 4 more Neo-Media companies.

And then tokenization of IP utilizing Startale's expertise. Mentioned earlier, this is using stablecoin, tokenization and utilization of AI in content creation, ample use of AI, content utilization of IP and talent. We'll be very aggressive with this, and utilization in the SBI Media Portal. So as a business ecosystem, we have 18 companies and they're all investing. So most of these are non-listed companies. So if they went public, then they will be happy, we will be happy, the founders will be happy. So this is a great synergy effect of all 18 companies in the Neo-Media ecosystem.

Of course, we have to work from inside as well. We're paying JPY 25 billion approximately in annual advertising and marketing costs and so I have instructed that we consolidate this. And there's a lot of relationships and negotiations necessary for this, because there's quite a bit of resistance, but I will not accept any exception. I will not allow this, because this is something that I have decided and I am determined to carry this out. Because unless you do something like this, an organization will not move. We blow whistle, but no one dances, that would not work. So you can have a meeting, but no resolution or no actions.

So there's different ways to describe this. We give a deadline and we carry that out, we perform that. This is the way I manage a company, so it's very concrete and very certain. And of course, I will input ideas and wisdom as much as I can. So right now we have JPY 25 billion in advertising and marketing costs, and there's really no scale merits that's being utilized. There's barriers, insufficient challenges. There's no knowledge being accumulated inside. We have not been able to utilize the marketing data. We have discovered so many different facts. So we will consolidate everything into SBI Neo-Media Holdings, and we will enjoy the scale merits through bulk ordering.

I have drawn a diagram to the left. This is the image of SBI Group as a house. So this is to support the growth of each group company, but also to enhance the brand value of the group as a whole. Because I think there's some under-recognition of SBI as a company, so we want this to be recognized throughout.

We will establish JPY 100 billion SBI Neo Content Fund. Cool Japan Fund will invest as well. So first close in June end. We have about JPY 600 million to JPY 700 million already. So if we say we are gathering funds, then if we can gather that much within first close, and I think all we need to do is to gather maybe additional JPY 5 billion, JPY 10 billion. So we have already been doing JPY 100 billion in scale before. So this should be easy.

And in the Neo-Media ecosystem, they will create new business areas by actively adopting evolution of AI and on-chain technology. We will examine the nature of journalism in the AI era. You know, there's concealing, manipulating images. We want to eliminate all of these challenges by fully utilizing AI. There'll be a whole different types of analysis. Media will shift from a place for information dissemination to infrastructure that transforms specific customer behavior. So if there's a good news, then the person that's watching the news will be able to take an action right away. So for example, X is the platform, this is what I really want to aim for is fair profit distribution utilizing blockchain, because the mechanism is such where platforms are generating profits, not the creators. And we need to really fix this, rectify this. If we can change this, then we can generate better content.

This is construction and utilization of a state-of-the-art Neo Media distribution base. So we have AI casters who does commentary, fact-checking, personalization. We have AI editor-in-chief, global news analysis. This will be about the new source of earnings. SBI Core, this is like a super-app. We will also have a media function in here, not just finance function. We're working on this right now. So this is my new concept today.

Contributing to regional revitalization through cities as media. Mr. Okada, who is the head of Neo Media, at the same time in our mind, we were actually looking at the same thing. I went to Saudi and I went through Dubai. 40-some years ago, I went to visit Dubai, and now it has transformed like this. And they have built this huge, enormous airport where people all around the world are gathered there. And then this idea of cities as media came up.

So when you consider that, so for example, city is redistributed nationwide through flow of people, content, and capital.

National strategy has to be designed and built under one strategy. Tokyo really has everything that it needs, good access, good transportation. Then we also need to build something that is symbolic. A good example is Disney. So you built a Disney resort and just look at how big of a city it is now. Urayasu used to be a small, tiny, remote city, and they bought this land, and people were wondering what would happen if there's an earthquake, they would have liquidation (sic) [ liquidity ] issue and they would be in trouble. But if you look at them, it's completely different, Tokyo Disneyland, DisneySea, and they have IKSPIARI.

IKSPIARI is a retail facility. So if you go into the resort, right at the entrance, there is this enormous retail facility. And it's conveniently accessible by train, 50 minutes from Haneda, 80 minutes from Narita. No wonder people are attracted here. They're able to attract all these different people, and this is very different, especially after COVID. You can see the percentage of international guests expanding rapidly. It used to be this small, but now it's increased like this.

One of the reasons why we invested in Tokyu is because of this. So this is us investing JPY 5 billion. They also invested JPY 5 billion into this SBI Group's Content Fund. So we acquired 5 million common shares of Tokyu. Why? We get along great, but we want to build an entertainment city project for Greater Shibuya. We want to promote that. You see on the internet people, like homeless people or people who are just gathering there, hanging out there, punching each other. We want to make it a very healthy environment and make it into an entertainment city, so that we can attract more people into Shibuya. And this is -- I think really it is the cities and Neo Media.

Now I went and visited the head of the bank of Shimizu and I was quite impressed. Shimizu Port has great access to Mount Fuji and there's cruise ships, and I saw this photo and suddenly it hit me, they should be able to best utilize this beautiful Mount Fuji and attract people through cruise ships like this. And Shimizu Port recorded 405 cruise ship calls in 2025. That's 10th in Japan and 10th for 4 consecutive years with 170,000 annual passengers. And they have built Shimizu Minato Machizukuri Grand Design in 2019, and the total project cost is JPY 100 billion. So we will participate in this and we will bring that entertainment element here. Then that region will change.

So there are various elements in here. In Izumo, there's a Gakko Hotel there. I think it's a three-star hotel. We built this three-star restaurant and hotel there. This is also part of the new community development. Mr. Sato was doing this at Awajishima as well. So this is the idea, and we want to do this at a national level. I think the city building community development should be done at the national level. And this is just about regional financial institutions.

This is a more impactful regional revitalization strategy that affects all participants, stakeholders.

So how the Neo-Media business can power SBI Group's regional revitalization strategy? So we will do the fireworks, and we have MUSIC CIRCUS that we're promoting. Last week, in this SBI Mai Fireworks, used to be Yume Fireworks before, but see it here. So may 30th, as in SBI Mai Fireworks in Chiba, Inage Seaside Park. Please go and visit. It's all about music and fireworks. So you know, many of these, our competitors are more securities broker kind of idea, but I think this is a completely new idea, and I thought this was great. So that is all from me.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Please allow me to speak while seated. From around the 6:00, 70-millimeter rain is expected. But thank you very much for this big turnout. And also, there are many participants on the online as well. Without further ado, we have 143 pages. So we are going to skip some pages, the pages of numbers. You can refer to them in detail later.

So the consolidated performance overview. The revenue and each profit line, all of them hit record highs, especially the pretax income, it was up 168.9% and also profit attributable to owners of the company, up to 170.7%. So we showed very strong growth. At the same time, in terms of ROE, annualized ROE stands at 22.5%, quite high ROE. And now this is the comparison with major securities groups. Nomura already announced earnings and Daiwa is going to make an announcement on November 4. So this is the first half on the left-hand side, SMBC Nikko and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings, the numbers are shown here.

By segment, as to crypto -- except crypto-asset business, numbers all hit record highs. The reasons that will be detailed later on. SBI Crypto, mining company, was taken over, if you like. In other words, there was an unauthorized outflow of JPY 2.5 billion. So -- but it did not provide any inconveniences to the other customers that we were going to liquidate the business anyway. And the profit was not so big and the staff number was very low. But this unauthorized outflow of assets happened. They were operating in old systems. So the monitoring and supervision was not good enough. The previous management was gone, we were going to liquidate the business. As to the share interim dividend, if the performance is good, then the dividend will be increased or vice versa. So for the end of second quarter, JPY 40.

Business overview of each business segment, Financial Services Business, both revenue and the pretax profit grew by around 13%. The numbers are record highs. The banking business, its weight is dominant in our case with JPY 73,596 billion, so up 17.1%. Securities business, JPY 34,092 billion, even with 0 fees. Here, it says negative number, but without. With the -- we booked JPY 5 billion in losses related to compensation of fraudulent transactions. So that impacted. As the insurance business, we don't need to worry about this business anymore because year-on-year, we can expect the steady growth.

Banking business. It's not only about SBI Shinsei, we have SBI ARUHI, SBI SAVINGS in South Korea, and Solaris in Germany, Credit Bank included and also other overseas banks. As you can see later on, we have invested a lot in banking business. The market, for example, U.S. market is doing very well, but that doesn't guarantee the steady growth next year. It's a question mark, I think. So the banking business, maybe we should focus on banking business. It might be better. In Japan, Ueda-san is kind of struggling, but in the process of normalization, or the process of normalization is absolutely necessary. Interest rate is going to go up. In the U.S., rates will come down at a very slow pace, I should say. But now it is coming down finally.

So globally, the macro economies are watched very closely to amend the business portfolio quickly. That's very important. So for the banking business, -- so we have the net profit attributable to owners of the company, JPY 69.3 billion due to increase in operating assets, mortgage and loan-related fees and gains on sales of securities. So it's up 56% on an IFRS basis, up 33% at JPY 64.4 billion. Retail accounts exceeding the JPY 4 million as of the end of September and the deposit amount, JPY 16.3 trillion, also showing a steady growth.

The operating assets at a similar amount, JPY 16.1 trillion, and the breakdown is shown here. So in December 2021, they joined the SBI Group, Shinsei Bank joined the SBI Group. And nobody imagined that it will be JPY 16 trillion level, but their assets doubled. Now the securities business is not only about SBI SECURITIES, but also 0 securities fees with that concept. We have been diversifying the contents of our business. So we have various constituent companies listed here. For the SBI SECURITIES for each item, numbers are record highs. So number one, number two at the bottom, the record non-operating income of about JPY 2.7 billion related to real estate silent partnership in the first quarter and recorded about a loss of JPY 5 billion as compensation related to unauthorized access and about JPY 3 billion for provision of reserve for financial instrument transaction liabilities.

The ZERO Revolution, we are expanding very steadily our revenue. Even after Zero Revolution, especially financial revenues are now accounting for big weight. The number of securities accounts 14,752,000 as of the end of September, compound annual growth rate, 13.3%. So very steady growth from the March 2009 to March 2025 and towards September, further growth. Nomura with the 5,998,000 accounts. And Yahoo! or PayPay included shown here and 200,000 to 300,000 additional accounts, if I remember correctly.

Here, this is the trend in share of individual stock trading value. SBI is showing a dominant level with 57.9%. And also for the trend in individual margin trading value, 60.8% for SBI and the insurance, both life and non-life and a small amount in short-term period and LY HOUR Cambodian companies are included in this area. Basically, we don't need to be worried about the insurance business. We have bigger customer bases. This is the insurance business. With the insurance business, we struggled. That's why we started with the securities and then banking. And then finally, insurance business.

So the other sales, the increase is translated into cost because of policy reserves. That's why insurance business is hard at the beginning. But when you reach a certain extent, unless there's a big natural disaster, it will grow very steadily. There are very detailed rules about earthquakes and so on. And if there are more insurable events, there could be the negative results. But basically, we believe that the trend will be positive going forward. The number of in-force contracts from March 2016 to September 2025 CAGR, 15.6%.

Asset Management business, up 9.2% and up 7.8%, both for revenue and pretax income. And global asset management consolidated basis, as you can see, numbers are record highs and quite good growth. So for the first half period, 14th consecutive period revenue increase. And for ordinary profit is for 16th consecutive period. And the profit attributable to owners of the company increased to 16th consecutive period. Asakura-san did a very good work and also the 7th consecutive period increase for interim dividends. It's very hard to do this continuously.

The other asset AUM, the JPY 20 trillion toward 2027, that's our target that we declared. And for that, in the group, we have reorganized our group. And this is SBI Group's AUM, is over JPY 12 trillion. And within 2027 fiscal year, we target at JPY 20 trillion. The PE investment business, private equity investment business, the public, the investment, and we should be always on alert for public investment as well. So we have public and private.

For Ripple and XRP distribution, we are seeing fluctuation. However, from '23, '24, JPY 25 trillion is the market cap for XRP circulated in the market. For actuals, it's at JPY 4.97 billion XRP and JPY 35 billion in escrow. So this is still left. So if this becomes open and how this translates into per unit. In the case of Ripple, they started to issue stable coins from June 30. It's been expanding substantially.

And also for acquisitions to Chris Larsen, I've been communicating to him that we are going to create an ecosystem, and they also have acquired Hidden Road and closed the deal as of October 24. And they agreed to acquire Rail, which I believe is a good stablecoin-based payment platform because they have overwhelming strength. And agreed to acquire Gtreasury as well, and we put money into it as well. So they also acquired a management company. So steadily, Ripple has been building out their ecosystem. And they will probably go to market when they complete building the ecosystem.

Regarding IPOs and M&A results, for the full year expectations, our prospects for '25 for Circle, they listed as of June 5 on the NYSE. At the same time, we became a cornerstone investor type of investor into Circle Internet Group. So it is basically a strategic investor type investment.

Regarding assets under management of the SBI Group, private equity, analyst the stocks, we are already exceeding JPY 1 trillion. The other day, when the President came to Japan, I was seated at the first table together with Akio Toyoda as well as Masayoshi Son and the President, and a defence-related ever-growing company, which was called ANDREIT. Well, anyway, the President of that company was there, and I was there as well. And opposite to Mr. Trump was the ambassador and his wife. So I was able to speak with him. And Aso-san was seated at a different table for some reason. Well, all the other people were from the business circle, but he's not. But I was impressed. So because he was there, I talked about Fukuoka and Osaka and connecting the two to create an international financial city.

And I talked about the proposals I was making. And I've been talking about this Takayama-san from long ago and to Governor Yoshimura, I've been approaching him to do it together. And he also gave me feedback that he was interested. And Aso-san is the last key person that needs to take action. And Kyushu Electric Power Company, having dinner with the President is important as well because they play a key role. And the Kyushu Exchange, currently, it's the association structure, but this needs to become an incorporated structure. So that is the plan we have right now.

Like Dojima, we would like to have a stake if we are able to realize it and connect it together. And what I really felt was the role of Kansai International Airport and its location. I really felt its significance. With the Expo underway, there were so many people who came there. And now with the integrated resort being developed, many people will continue to arrive there. And also music circus that you saw a video on in Osaka Fukuoka, they were able to attract 350,000 people in total. And you saw many young people in the video, right? So basically, we would like to capture the views into the SBI Group. That's why we have started off in this initiative of music circus.

And in the Web3 area, for those people who are interested in this area in order to capture them, an event called WebEx was underway, which is the greatest in its scale in Japan, and we will have a majority stake. I will talk about this later. But that's where we are. So we call it new media, but it's not like traditional media. And by the way, Mr. Trump said that the media only reports fake news and they're not credible. And I told them, I agree. So we should avoid reporting fake news. For news, you should only report news that you have conviction of.

So the Crypto-Asset business is next. Like mentioned earlier, SBI Crypto, we recognized a loss worth JPY 2.5 billion. However, revenue grew by 8.9%. Regarding the number of customers, it's close to 1.8 million now. And VC Trade BITPoint together, deposit balance is now JPY 880 billion. CAGR as of end of September, comparing it against 2022 grew by 44.5% from 2022 end of September through 2025 end of September. Because of the big revolution around stablecoins, I do believe we can attract a considerable number of customers.

Also, one of the companies that comprise the ecosystem is B2C2. We bought them at an early stage, and we have 90% of holding or shareholding ratio. It's a very interesting company, I believe. Of course, there is some fluctuation. It is an exchange for global crypto assets. And basically, they fluctuate. That's the characteristic. But B2C2 is a market maker. But market makers are able to get a spread. So they should not generate huge losses as long as you well control the business. So we would like to control the business and it seemed that we were approached the other day that people were interested to buy the business out for JPY 100 billion, but I said that's not enough. So we have no intention of selling this business.

Next is Next Gen business. So gumi and Mynavi are here. Gumi used to generate losses, but now it has turned profitable. For Mynavi, fortunately, the equity pickup contribution is JPY 3.7 billion. For example, all the business, they still are generating using up expenses apart from what's going to be listed, that's going to be profitable. But when it comes to pharmaceutical manufacturers, the R&D cost is quite high. So it's hard to generate good profitability out of these businesses. But we do need to have these businesses. For brain cancer to bladder and for other parts, we are trying to get the approval as a diagnosis compound. It's growing in the U.S., and we can have its application in Europe.

For March '26 and our view on the second half of the year, this is by quarter or by half, first half and second half. And consolidated profit before income tax expense, it was JPY 212.1 billion, and you could see the breakdown and extraordinary factors are listed here as well. Excluding extraordinary factors, this is the number we would get. Therefore, in the first half, JPY 216.1 billion is profit before tax, exclusive of extraordinary factors. But we do recognize JPY 212.1 billion as well. And if you add on the second half, you were able to get the full year expectation.

So things that are locked in for the second half. First will be the affiliate sales gains of SBI Sumishin Net Bank, which is worth JPY 141.6 billion. Also, the gain on negative goodwill expected to be recognized from the acquisition of the shares of Kyobo Life Insurance. It depends on net assets, but we expect that it's going to be around JPY 30 billion. This is not officially authorized yet, but this will not go away, although it may take time because due to the financial regulators in South Korea that are scrutinizing this. But basically, it's not going to go away. And we have -- we will have 20% of Kyobo Life. So if you add these together, we will derive JPY 383.7 billion.

Therefore, roughly speaking, for the financial services business alone, I think JPY 100 billion is sure, which means it's JPY 483.7 billion. So in the medium-term vision, we have set a target of JPY 500 billion for March '29. We believe that we will be able to achieve this already. But what's important here is we are going to recognize gain on sales, but that's not the important piece. We want to ensure that we are able to achieve these targets. So we'll see. But I think we will be able to steadily grow our business as a group.

And the group's customer base, we would like to increase it to 100 million. Right now, we're at 54.42 million. We would like to increase this to 100 million. What's most difficult in this is the share of overseas businesses and consolidated profit before income tax expenses. This was approximately 17% in fiscal '24, which we would like to increase to 30% in fiscal '28 because this part is increasing. So this is quite a challenge. In order to make this happen, we will need to conduct M&As, which is a quick way to achieve this.

Regarding ROE, 22.5%, it already exceeds 15% there aren't that many financial institutions in Japan that have an ROE higher than 20%. So for the customer base for overseas financial service businesses customer base, it's around 30 million. And on an aggregated basis, we would like to reach 100 million, inclusive of our overseas customer base. So right now, it's about 30 million. If you add everything together, both Japan and abroad, we are at 78,362,000 as of end of September. So regarding the target of 100 million, we believe we can reach that target. That's how I feel.

So towards these targets, we would like to ensure that we pursue sustainability through these measures. First, in addition to further evolving the corporate ecosystem built by the SBI Group, we would like to create innovative and highly profitable services by promoting the convergence of ecosystems across each business sector and maximizing synergistic effects. And I have 1 through 4, which is the breakdown of this. So this is conceptual. We have the financial services ecosystem, asset management, regional revitalization ecosystems exist underneath, and they can generate synergies, converge together and evolve together to a higher level. And then on a group-wide basis, the ecosystem can elevate to a higher level.

Accelerating the evolution of the business ecosystem centered on financial services is next. So one thing is the bank securities collaboration, which is broken down into three parts. First, the collaboration between SBI Shinsei Bank and SBI SECURITIES. Referrals from 2022 October through September 2025, which is about 3 years, it has been 634,972 customers who have been referred from SECURITIES to Shinsei Bank. This is a fact.

Also, so what connected the two together was this, the sweep account, which we call SBI Hyper Yokin or hyper deposit, which can go this way and that way, that way to this way so that funds can flow freely between the two. So we have created this mechanism. So it's basically convenient from the customer's point of view, I believe. So you don't have to manually do the deposits and withdrawals anymore. And for Hyper Yokin, the rates that are applied, it's twice as much compared to an ordinary deposit. It's 0.42%. This was a big factor as well. We would like to offer these incentives so that we could create an overwhelming situation. And fees for fund transfers are lower as well.

For SBI Shinsei Bank and MONEYPLAZA, we have joint branches. Shinsei Bank at all of their branches, the 22 retail branches, MONEYPLAZA has become a part of it. So SBI Shinsei Wealth Management is now established, which is at JPY 625 billion right now AUM-wise. SBI SECURITIES, Ejutsi-san, who unfortunately passed away proposed this actually. And then he created this, but then he unfortunately passed away.

At regional banks, this is functioning well as well. So what we're doing to increase the contribution from overseas businesses. We would like to work on this on a group-wide basis to reach overseas operations account for 30% of consolidated pretax profit. So this is where we are right now regarding our overseas businesses.

Before COVID, I was talking about conquering Southeast Asia thoroughly. So Australia, New Zealand used to be owned by Shinsei originally, the other parts mostly were areas where I personally went to develop the business to create personal ties. In other words, what are we doing now? Because I am not going on business trips as much as before because there was COVID. So I was actually complaining the other day, but we need to do more with respect to our business overseas, when you think about the growth prospects of APAC or Southeast Asia. We don't want just costs to continue to fall out. We need to attempt to do something new. Here are some strategic investees in the banking sector, Solaris, Sygnum, Germany, Switzerland, and Indonesia. For these two, our exposure is still low. Our stake is low, but they are strategic investees in the area of digital banks. So we are intending on making more investments of this nature. If it goes well, we would like to acquire these entities.

Now this is SBI Savings Bank, where we own 90%, and it is growing at 32% of year-on-year growth. And during the first half, JPY 8.9 billion IFRS level of efforts been made. When you look back, when we acquired this company, well, the delinquency rate was 51.6% in 2013, and that was actually dropped significantly. And it is only 4.4%. There's no problem. And total assets is maintained quite well and the performing loans are maintained quite well. And therefore, the business is performing quite well. And when we acquired this company, well, factoring is one thing, and it was not really desirable, and we were criticized that we've acquired a garbage, but this is the current situation.

When you talk about the banking businesses, if you don't challenge on a difficult challenge, then what we -- what I did in the past is that real estate developers and construction companies were -- there were so many investment that was a promise to generate profits, but real estate market collapsed tremendously. And that was the situation back then. Ultimately, the bubble bursted, and everyone went under afterwards. And this particular bank was struggling in the same way. However, we then prohibited that we should not get involved in the property market. And well, they begged so much. So therefore, we were very strictly selected in regard to real estate development and construction. And we minimized the investment in this area as much as possible. And therefore, we've not suffered from much of a risk.

And Vietnam, TPBank, well, if it has exceeded 1%, and then we will infringe with the law. And therefore, we only allowed to own maximum 20%. We actually got the approval from the government to be able to own up to 20% and equity-method company where we converted into. And then we had suffered from a large losses they had incurred. But now it's JPY 280 billion. Well, until recently, the company has exceeded JPY 300 billion. However, currently, JPY 280 billion or so. And 20% of those is our stake. And in Ho Chi Minh security market that we -- the company is becoming public, and it is adopted as the main index VN30. And there is a 15.5 million accounts. And there's a 100 million population in this company. There was so much energy of the youth, and there were so many vital people.

So SBI LY HOUR BANK is that currently, we have raised our ownership to 100%. It was a middle-level microfinance company in Cambodia that we have acquired, and we upgraded to the commercial bank. And Russia, SBI Bank, we have over 90% of ownership where business performance is really robust. Interest rate is really high. U.S., Russia, relationship goes well and then the interest rates will go down, and therefore, our business performance will be pushed down. But what is beneficial is that once the Japanese companies withdraw from Russia, all these companies may go back to the Russian market, which we can expect to happen. So we will -- we've been doing a banking business in Russia, though most of the other players are already withdrawn from this market. So we are surviving in this market at this moment. So JPY 3.5 billion before tax profits.

And for securities, SBI Royal Securities is where we have 65.29% of ownership. And this is the only Japanese full-fledged securities companies in Cambodia. Profits are fairly well. Well, there is a minor typo here. So it looks a bit weird, but apologies for that. Now SBI Thai Online Securities, we own 100%. And this year, we had profits. But in the previous term, there was a mismanagement. And I declared that I'm going to fire the senior management if they repeat the mistake. So it was really stupid, and they promised that they're not going to do that again. So we just kept that senior management.

Now in Indonesia, there is a BNI Sekuritas, and this is JPY 18.7 million. It is fairly small. At the end of the last fiscal year, with the inauguration of the new President, the political basis is becoming really unstable, and therefore, profit margin has declined tremendously. And the markets where the political uncertainty arises and there is a type of risks that we need to face. And FPT Securities, where we have 23.3% of ownership. This company has been generating relatively low profits, yet Trump tariff would negatively affect this particular company. And in fact, there were JPY 940 million of before tax profits. But now in this fiscal year, this is the current forecast.

So this is a UDC Finance Limited or Shinsei used on. And this is a really good company. This is the largest nonbanking company in New Zealand. And it is generating very good profits. And during the first half, March 2026, JPY 4.9 billion of before tax profits. And during the first half, this is the profit level. And in Australia, Latitude Group Holdings Limited, this is already traded in the market and JPY 116 billion of market cap. An installment payment, credit card business, and auto loan where they are doing businesses.

So LY HOUR SBI Insurance, for the first time in Cambodia, LY HOUR Group has opened up the casualty insurance business, but this is the size that they have achieved, and it is marginal, but it is a part of the group, and it is generating profits. So 40% of ownership that we have, and we will carefully monitor the situation, and we may start to increase our ownership. So this is the analysis with the South Korean competitors. And there is a full year basis of 70% of the share has decreased to 12.5% because the total market size has increased. So nothing we could do about it. But -- even if the total pie have increased yet, we'd like to occupy still 30%.

So banking business, where the organic growth is pursued and M&A will be used to grow going forward. So this is an M&A strategy where we'd like to pursue. So for example, when we use shares and engage in M&A, for instance, well, we are going to finance ourselves and use that cash to acquire the businesses is no longer a viable methods all the time. And therefore, we'd like to do an equity swap and stock for stock so that we are able to engage in M&A with a certain liquidity or cash invested as well, and we will take more active stance position in M&A.

So 30% will be achieved through the operational portfolio and business portfolio revision and so forth. So we have convened the overseas branch manager meeting inviting from the -- all around the world. So from the 16 countries and regions around the world, we invited 23 heads of the sites, and we have convened the managers' meeting. And we will facilitate the network and coordination among the overseas offices, and we will further enhance the relationship between domestic and overseas business. And particularly, we'd like to enhance the vertical connections. For example, in the banking businesses and security businesses, there are multiple subsidiaries and businesses, sharing know-how, sharing ideas. By doing so, we'd like to further enhance the vertical connection.

And we will promote the convergence of digital asset ecosystem and financial ecosystem, anticipating the advent of the token economy era. As I always insist, less than 10 years, all of the asset is going to be tokenized in some way or another. Therefore, my kind word is that we'd like to change from online on the web to on chain on the blockchain. So this is the off chain based on Web3. So record transaction results on the blockchain. And there's a small contract that will be tapped into. As such, the whole transaction will be automatically processed over the blockchain. And that is the change from online or the web to the on chain -- on the blockchain.

So already, we have formulated the ecosystem for security banks and software and financial services. And we've been making a digital space ecosystem. We should not waste what we already have on the left-hand side. We need to match toward the right-hand side, and we try to integrate between the two. And that is the key. To put it simply, SBI SECURITIES customers for that until August 2025, the CFD of crypto assets has launched. And also in the banking business, the deposit token and stablecoin related business is now under consideration. And in the asset management businesses, start to launch the crypto asset ATF or crypto-asset covered funds and so forth, it is still discussed. We actually have a sufficient level of discussion. If we are ready, we can start right away. So in each country around the world, the digital assets system as well as the regulation is put in place.

And Scott Bessent with him, Treasury Secretary that we have discussed a lot. And Genius law -- Genius Act is now approved, signed into law by President Trump. And therefore, there is quite a great law when we pursue the digital assets in the United States. And there are protection of consumers and also regulatory authorities functioning it to be enhanced in this area going forward and also how to prevent the money laundering and how to secure international competitiveness of U.S. dollars and the position as a reference currency.

Number 5 is really critical for the United States. And that's why we are trying to support. Well, I said the other day that there are something that we can contribute to. Of course, manufacturers were signing on many agreements, how much they are going to invest in the United States and what activities that they're going to do in the United States that will help the United States a lot in increasing the employment. But we, in financial services is to bring liquidity or finances available in Japan to the United States. So JPY 2,300 trillion of Japanese consumers' assets will be delivered to the United States and joint venture strategy that we have been exploring is -- has been explored through the major players so far. And that is one way of trying to support the United States.

And also, how much SBI transactions where the U.S. market is making, and that is also an important factor as well. So it is not just a manufacturing where Japan should contribute. And I said to the United States the other day, Scott, that it should not be just manufacturing, but it should be the financing service as well. And Scott truly understand because he's from the financing industry, and they are highly evaluating the stablecoin. And among others that I talked about Ripple Lab, 9% is owned by us, and he said that, that is huge. So we are the large shareholder, and that is a great factor. And as for the circle, we are giving the cornerstone investment for technical development. And gradually, where Ripple is going to establish, so billion group where we've invested.

There is something that we have approved right before this meeting, but I should not disclose that information at this moment. So we are taking a great leadership in taking action at Japan. And 55.95% is considered as miscellaneous income, and that is a tax structure for the crypto asset capital gain, that's outrageous. And also the crypto asset ETF is not approved yet in Japan. But as long as U.S. is approving, Japan should approve. And the rest is just risk management. Of course, the investor protection has to be put in place yet pursuant to the laws and regulations.

Well, crypto asset transaction is approved of, which means that crypto-asset ETF shall be approved in Japan as well and also leverage restrictions that's not just 2x. Well, maximum 25x was allowed until 2019, and there were some incidents, and it was restricted to 2x. And when such a regulation is put in place, global competitiveness has to be fully considered. Otherwise, Japan will not flourish. We have to put in place a system where we can compete well all around the world.

Of course, the tax discrepancy need to be eliminated and subject of separate taxation. And also the crypto-asset ETF is essential and the limits of 1 million transfer limit and holding restriction applied to overseas issued stablecoin doesn't make sense. Institutional investor limited to 1 million is nonsense. And of course, if we explore the trust bank scheme, and I believe that all of the crypto-asset need to be explored by using Shinsei Trust Bank because regulation is different.

So Katayama-san has been getting involved in the policy research chair of LDP in financial services. So we've been explaining this to her a lot. So this is the -- our policy. So Shinsei Trust Bank is going to be fully utilized going forward. So JPY 1 million of a constraint will have to be avoided in real world. And for that to happen, the trust bank has to be used. So therefore, we are proceeding with our stablecoins and so forth. So dollar-based stablecoin, USDC is already approved as stablecoin in Japan and Europe, the circle is limited as the issuer of the stablecoin in Europe and Ripple. RL USD is already registered in Green list in New York State and issuance is starting.

And therefore, as long as the permit is granted in Japan, and that's what we intend to do as soon as possible, and then we'll try to start to deal over the SBI VC trade. And the yen-denominated stablecoin on the 22nd of August that in regard to the healthy transactions and the utilization of stablecoin, where we have entered into an agreement with SMBC Bank. In addition, company Startale which is a venture company, where this is quite a prominent and great company, where there are so many great engineers and technologies there. And we need to do one after another in order to catch up with the general trend or latest trend in the market.

Now regarding the crypto-asset treasury businesses, where the listed company is going to secure the funds in the form of crypto assets such as BTC, seeking a significant increase in corporate value through strategic holding crypto assets. And current strategy company currently searched by 2,200% at once in market cap and stock price. And we've started to acquire the BTC and the stock price has surged up to 3,830% at some point.

So treasury, Bitcoin -- treasuries who owns Bitcoin is exceeding over 200 companies around the world. So total $116.2 billion. And even in the Japanese companies from a completely outside ecosystem that there are some companies entered to this area. And these are the companies who entered to this business. And the treasury companies is going to be a large volume transaction partner in the crypto assets. So we are expecting profit and revenue growth.

So XRP Ripple, in the U.S., Ripple is -- with Ripple, ever knows doing XRP treasury, there will be another vehicle for us to invest. And Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple that makes investment as well. And there are many institutional investors along with SBI Group and Ripple. So we raised over USD 1 billion and using stock NASDAQ listing that will happen. And when the value goes up, of course, our own valuation will also go up. This is very interesting. This will be very interesting. We are for the asset tokens and we accelerate preparations to provide the trading services for RWA, we are doing lots of things with the Startale global basis.

Now they are headquartered in the Singapore, but with many Japanese companies and they experienced in developing layer 2 blockchain. Layer 1, Bitcoin, ordinary one, layer 2 that is with on chain with a smart contract. And so the SBI Group has established a joint venture with Startale Group to jointly develop a trading platform that promotes the unchaining of tokenize stocks and RWAs.

The other day, we had dinner together with the other stakeholders. First of all, near real-time international settlement will be available through co-development and SBI Group is going to establish joint venture with Startale Group and the DGFT. The manager Authority of Singapore and the Hong Kong Securities and the Futures Commission SFC have already approved it for this joint venture, it's already a done deal.

Actually, there's a track record. They launched the world's first on-chain stock index fund that allows investment and redemption using stable coins. So they had a very strong technological prowess. The SBI Group becomes a partner to develop applications and services on the AC blockchain of USAO. AC's characteristics are shown here. I find it very interesting, for example, gas fees, the USDC can be adopted to stabilize transaction costs. That's one example that we are going to do. And SBI Neo Media ecosystem, we are making preparation for that. At the same time, though, we are doing the financing through funds, there are many participants. So fundraising is becoming very successful. But we cannot wait for that, for funds, so we have already started investment from SBI Holdings.

There are 4 areas, media, talent agency. Already, we acquired 77% of shares of Twin Planet, and now they are an equity method affiliate and ad agency production companies, event companies, and we acquired 34% in the core. This core, this company is really wonderful. SBI Music Circus -- earlier, we were showing the video of SBI Music Circus, now we acquired 51%, so they are our subsidiary. Brangista 8.23% and CoinPost, Web3 event for example, and other technology events are held by CoinPost, 51% [NIP]. [A through H] companies, all of them are underway. And Takama-san and his team are working for development and so on.

And for the price negotiation and everything, just before the final stage, I will come in to make a final decision. And about the core, the other day -- the other day, this person who came to me to have dinner and he's from Arab Royal family, and he liked the core. It's wonderful, real engine future production and game for development. They are doing all of these things, original IP, the production creation is their focus. Twin Planet, they have both management agency and marketing agencies and they can maximize IP values.

When it comes to IP, intellectual property, it's extremely important. Creation of IP and enhancement of IP value and generate and pursue IP revenue and how to do it. IP related issues alone, we have been in discussion with various companies. The leverage synergies between the SBI Neo Media ecosystem and existing financial and digital space ecosystems. For example, we are now developing a comprehensive financial platform and also digital space ecosystem can be linked with each other, and IPs can be tokenized so that we can support and invest at the same time. ODX now is functioning as the distribution market. So now we need to diversify our products, not only real estate ST. but ST can be applied to all kinds of things.

Various measures being vigorously promoted to achieve our goals of the midterm vision. There are 5 items listed here. First, this is something that I have been saying repeatedly, it's about open alliance strategy. Let me start with it. So for the developed open alliance strategy that SBI SECURITIES has pursued to date, to realize initiatives that extended beyond finance. From a long time ago, we need to go beyond finance at the same time we focus on the finance. And SBI Group already in alliance with SMBC, NTT, KDDI and especially AU Financial, and all of these entities have tremendous bases of customers. And by collaborating with them, we can deploy our business using their customer bases.

We can expand our customer bases through those collaborations. We promote the deepening and expansion of alliances, primarily in the security sector. Actually, we are already doing lots of things with those entities. So we will further develop the open alliance strategy promoted by SBI SECURITIES, extremely effective one was the Olive with SMBC Group. About Olive, the financial intermediary accounts with the SMBC Group at SBI SECURITIES 1.566 million or up 123.6%. So this is an evidence that the Olive is a merit for both sides. There's a very big merit for us and it will give more merits to us. And Sumitomo Mitsui Cards set accumulation amount and number of accounts. The set accumulation amounting -- number of asset accumulation accounts increased by 13.3% and JPY 164.8 billion is the amount.

For further promotion, the press conference, [indiscernible] and myself, it's about the establishment of Olive Consulting Company Limited. It's a Mand consulting services, a digital service with added value for affluence, but not only that, in various ways, we'd like to have this advisory business and we would like to grow this business in corporation.

With NT Group and KDDI Group, we are vigorously advancing new initiatives in fields beyond finance alongside the 2 major telecom groups SBI SECURITIES [indiscernible] Machine Net Bank. And DOCOMO alone, they are the JPY 91.59 million, SBS Machine 8.46 million accounts, au Jibun Bank 6.89 million, au Financial Services and au PAY Card 10.32 million.

So the examples of collaboration initiatives, points when opening accounts or purchasing products were used d POINTS to buy stocks and mutual funds or use TCAD for regular investment fund purchases. On the AU side, real-time deposit to securities accounts can be made from au Jibun Bank accounts, the same format between SBI Bank and Securities.

Open of SBI SECURITIES accounts via au Jibun Bank's website, it's a intermediary services. And prepared interest rates for ordinary yen deposits to customers using real-time bank transfers.

So with NTT Group, they have real estate IP and fund. It's a very cash-rich company. So they might not be interested in the small things, but you can have the big size or basis of money and R&D and the investment that needs to be continuously done. So all of these things can be tokenized and SG&A will be created and sold at or by SBI SECURITIES. And of course, ODX, Osaka Digital Exchange, will do the secondary market, I guess you can sell your assets whenever you want to you have IP or funds and real estate, the transactions in various manners. With NTT Group, ultimately, and the decision to sell the big factor behind it was [ION].

The PTS or token exchange, we would like to use it in exchange as well, then we can speed up the process and the electric efficient will be 100x better and the capacity will be 125x and low latency will be released to [1,200]. This is a wonderful technology. So we would like to use this technology for our financial business that will give us very strong competitive edge and SBI Group and NTT Group have already established ION working group. These are the members of that group. And in addition, SBI Investment playing a central role. SBI Group is actively invested in core technologies and use cases related to ION. As those companies with the markets, we are investing in those companies for photonics electrics converge and so on. And NTT has already invested. So both S&N have already invested in quite a lot of companies. And the [K] is those considering to invest. And actually, I met many of them myself.

So we are going to increase the number of members in the group. So we would like to contribute to the further enhancement of ION technology. And that should be delivered to global market. In call center operations, a joint venture between KDDI and Mitsui & Company called Altius Link. Our non-life insurance business already uses their services, it's a digital BPO service company provider. I think it's a very good service. KDDI the other day, their headquarters relocated to a new location and the President guided me through their new office. They have good technology as well. I was quite impressed. When it comes to carriers in Japan, telcos in Japan, including SoftBank, starting off with NTT, they have amazing technology.

So it's a matter of how you leverage it. Even if there's technology available, it's a matter of how we can increase the number of companies that leverage that technology. So we would like to personally use it as well as spread it around the world. So that's our aspiration. Development of a financial super app comprehensive financial platform to advance the open alliance strategy into a new phase. The previous speech I made somewhere, I talked about the financial platform. So on top of that, new services are what we would like to add, which is financial platform as a service. That's what we would like to create. It's a new financial model and we have been seeing good progress.

So I've made a decision. Holding company 95%, Shinsei Bank will be 5% of it to create a new platform. SBI SECURITIES, which is the greatest broker in Japan, SBI Shinsei Bank with Internet being the main channel, various types of functions can -- we already have both a full-service bank offering, both retail and corporate banking services. So through the use of APIs and other technologies, we would like to provide these functions to partner businesses by consolidating the diverse financial functions of the SBI Group into a single platform. So the company will launch a new financial super app, a comprehensive financial platform. That's what we're thinking.

And already Chubu Electric Power Miraiz and ourselves has entered into a basic agreement to develop new services. So we would like to accordingly expand out to partners and also accordingly expand our customer base because I think our customers will really appreciate this. And asset management business, thoroughly pursuing alliances with powerful companies, et cetera, in an endeavor to provide a variety of investment products incorporating cutting-edge trends for domestic investors.

In Japan, I mentioned this earlier, there's massive household financial assets JPY 2,239 trillion, but there are many asset types where, for example, deposits where the rates are really low. The dollar keeps on appreciating whilst the yen is depreciating. So this is a ludicrous policy, but all along, it's been ongoing. I think it's a very ludicrous policy [indiscernible]. I think he's the worst Head of the BOJ. And for Ueda-san, he's not able to make decisions. He's not decisive. Mr. Basant has been applying pressure that much. But even so, he's not able to make a decision in deploying the situation. The yen is going to weaken even more. Prices of goods will increase even more for the Ministry of Finance. They do appreciate an inflationary environment maybe.

So we would like to protect investors. And in order to do so, good financial products. We would like to introduce them one after the other to Japan. So back in 2015, we entered a partnership, the head of PIMCO and myself got off to an equal relationship. And in the past, they used to create a JV with a Singapore entity, but that broke off. So we were not engaging in partnerships ever since, but they decided to enter one with us. So I think the balance is already over JPY 2 trillion. For Man Group, the head of operations is a female person. And from 2023, we've entered a partnership, we established a joint venture SBI Man Asset Management. So Henry from KKR, we really click, we get along very well. He's a very candid person about -- he was saying I'm the most candid person who talks about Japan that he's ever met. I said I don't like [indiscernible] and I was talking about [west] of time. And I said, let's have a business discussion.

He came again the other day, and we were able to have extensive discussions. [Franklin Templeton] also headed by a female head, very confident person. We entered a partnership ever since 2024. ETF -- virtual currency ETF. They handled it for the first time in the U.S. So these players do mainly alternative management. So equities, fixed income, they're not investing in that space. They're investing in other assets. Although it does include corporate bonds, but they're basically more diversified.

When you talk about alternative asset management, for example, hedge funds, private debt, private equity as well, infrastructure investments, real estate, et cetera. So by including all of these assets, they're trying to diversify the risk. So in this regard, this market is expected to continue to grow.

So for alternative investment products, under the concept of democratizing alternative investments, I would like to expand these offerings in Japan, increasingly, so that the people of Japan can see their asset management succeed, although their wages may not be increasing. Even if nominal wages go up, if inflation is prolonged, real wages will not go up. For this, SBI Alternative High Income Select Fund settlements 4 times a year. We're in a great player. It's invested -- the investments are diversified into great places like KKR, Apollo, Blackstone and so forth. So in this way, when it comes to fees, you're able to start investing from JPY 10,000. It's very unique to our company. Our fees are the lowest. So this is under the operations of [indiscernible]. But in this way, we would like to expand this business. Also for gold, I have been saying let's go with gold to Kawashima-san and at early stage, I sold it at an early stage and Kawashima-san continues to hold on to gold. So I think his balances increasing. Before anyone started to talking about gold, I was one of the first to say it's all about gold.

So in June '23, that was the inception need. And right now, net assets have exceeded JPY 200 billion. At an early stage, there was this Indian-American company in the U.S., and we established a JV for gold back then, it was stocked across 7 places in the world safely and the inspections are frequent. Of course, if we didn't have the stock of gold, that would be a challenge. And the returns are amazing. It's close to 50%. So next generation -- SBI -- next Generation Technology Strategy Fund, it was established in September 17, 2025. Quantum computing, Web3 and Nuclear Fusion, which are innovative technology areas that are going to be necessary going forward. This is a strategic fund that will invest into this space. And for NavTrans, it's currently at JPY 12,054 now.

SBI Okasan Asset Management, they do a great job as well, Shinshiba-san. I regard him highly. And when you look at this an AUM, they have been able to steadily increase AUM regardless of what kind of environment it in. And yields are at [3.7646%]. SBI Group's AUM to reach JPY 20 trillion. We will target not only organic growth, but M&As as well. In the field of M&A, bank-related and asset management-related areas are the 2 most important areas. Of course, if there's a good securities company, we would like to invest in them as well. And also, in the new digital arena, we would like to constantly make investments. And we also -- we can make investments through funds as well.

Evolution of SBI Group's regional revitalization strategy through co-creation with regional economic entities. The fourth mega bank concept, I started to talk about this, and that is why I started the process of acquiring Shinsei Bank. And back then, people were saying that, that's not possible. And after we completely acquired the entity, after 2-plus years, we are poised to bring the bank to market. That's where we are right now.

So originally, there was JPY 350 billion worth of public funds, but we have repaid the entire amount. And now flexibility of management will increase, and we now have an environment where we can have flexible management strategies with flexibility, whether it be human resource strategies or financial policies or capital policies, that's very important. Having a performance-linked compensation scheme for executives and employees, the compensation was at a reduced level for a while. So I think people really did a good job, but now a stock option system is going to be introduced so that many people can benefit from this program.

For SBI Holdings and our employees, when stock prices go up, for the people who have held on to the stocks are really happy. But for the people who have sold the stocks down already, they might may have regretted it. But for stock options, we will consistently offer it to our employee base. So I hope our people can personally build their asset base through this program. We would like to accelerate becoming the fourth mega bank. We have been communicating this concept from before. And we would like to -- we would like to accelerate the concept by taking the relisting as an opportunity and thoroughly advancing the expansion of alliances with regional financial institutions. We have invested into -- we have concluded a strategic capital and business alliance agreement with Tohoku Bank. And we will work to enhance the system they have.

So we now have an alliance with 10 banks, but we are not going to equally have a relationship with each and every one of them because we have a limit to the resources we have. So the shares we have in them, it will differ. So in some cases, we might decide to quit the alliance. So I would like to ensure that for those entities, we can help, we have helped. And for those who follow our instructions, they typically will improve.

Also for Shinsei Bank, as a platform provider for regional financial institutions are steadily yielding tangible results. For syndicate loans or sustainable finance, it already constitutes JPY 214.7 billion. We've been selling it to regional financial institutions and also for syndicated loans as well, Akita Bank, Joyo Bank and other, there's many others. And personnel exchange, mainly around the structured finance department. Since 2022, we received 49 trainees from 28 regional banks. So we have been supporting them in various ways. For [Showa Leasing], 62 out of 80 clients, number of regional bank affiliated leasing companies is this number.

And in regard to the regional redevelopment efforts, where 2 has to be attained whatever it takes. The first one is the sophistication of the asset management. If they were investing as is at this moment, they are going to incur a massive loss. We need -- started to see a sophistication of such methods and also systems cost. It is [indiscernible] that they are incurring massive amount of systems development costs. For the core banking system, when they need to upgrade, there is a massive cost and depreciation costs alone will be really heavy and burdensome for regional banks and therefore, affordable and changing the fixed cost to the variable costs. Such approach needs to be explored, and that's something that we've been explored. And luckily, Future Architect developed this particular system.

Fukushima, Shimane, all these regional banks have implemented such system already. Kirayaka, Sendai Towa decided to implement this in the near future. And therefore, the system is going to be deployed in all these regional banks one after another, then the depreciation cost will be reduced through changing the fixed cost to the variable cost and the maintenance cost is going to be really lower and also 2 factors authentication compliant with the FDO is introduced and the AWS cloud is going to be used as well.

So FutureArctic system is enabling all these. And at Tokushima Bank, the network was reduced by 50%. And product development period is actually shortened to [1/3] of the time that we needed in the past. So there are so many benefits coming up from the system and group companies of us is actually connecting and coordinating with many regional banks. So I will skip the detail.

Now what about Neo Media domain, where through the alliances, we are accelerating the regional revitalization strategy. And the fireworks that I mentioned earlier, there are so many large [rewards] across Japan and reflect to start to do such an event. All the areas with a large [rewards] and fantastic, beautiful fireworks of Japan need to be communicated to the -- all around the world. And the Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington with President Trump.

There was some media reports over the Internet that Prime Minister, Takaichi recommended Mr. Trump to launch the fireworks in Washington, which comes from the Japanese Akita fireworks. So there are so many ideas like this. And regional banks and local media and the local stations are actually rooted deeply in the regional economies, and they have established a deep relations in the loan, investment and financing and other types of partnership. So there are usually a local broadcasters invested by the regional banks. So all these are examples of such networks.

So think about this as a critical factor, where local media need to be organically connected to the regional revitalization strategy. And such an idea, whether should I endeavor into this or not, we had -- I had a clear idea of doing this clearly at the time of the possible acquisition of the 3G TV station. And at the round, there is a -- around November, most of the investment will be completed for this year. Therefore, at some point, we'd like to invite the member of the press, and I'd like to share my own ideas in this regard.

Now for overseas offices, we'd like to share my ideas all across fully. Power of AI and [indiscernible] station, for instance, they can do this really quickly. I've written a paper about the Fusion and the -- it is a translation version by John Ari, and I'm going -- prepared to publish in English, and it is already decided to publish in Vietnam and South Korea. And therefore, the publishers around the world want that book to be published on the -- in their countries. Therefore, this idea that I started to assert in English version. And in many offices and subsidiaries around, they can use this to communicate to their customers. So our information is going to be communicated well to the world and such a network of information is going to be established.

So regional revitalization plan that I'm going to work on will be achieved through a collaboration between the regional banks and regional media and all the comprehensive players in this region is going to be integrated and try to formulate a clearer strategic path. So people, money and goods are fused into the regional information and network so that they are going to be connected in organic way, and they are going to communicate that to the outside regions across Japan and across the world.

And this is a very high-quality information that I can recognize. So what type of customers is doing what and what type of initiative that they're going to do, you will be able to access to all these information. So regional players are going to be connected organically. So Brangista and Tabiira, many celebrities are highlighted and attracting a lot of readership. And Brangista is growing, and we acquired 8.23% of the stake. Monthly subscription fee is the only one where the company can access to the photo and video services of celebrities used for the PR of the companies, and this is the idea of a Kondo with Nexus, and he is quite excellent in this type of idea. So he accompanied with me. And he is becoming a Vice Chair of Neo Media, and I am the Chair of Neo Media business.

So if you stay in comfortable zone, you will not be able to grow. So you need to think outside of the box in order to pursue growth. So maximizing the utilization of ESB Group management resources to event-driven regional revitalization. So Music Circus, for instance, the -- one of the largest Japanese music festival like Music Circus and the largest Kansai fireworks display, [indiscernible] and it is SBI Music Circus now because we acquired 51% of their stake. This is really efficient to bring the attention of the use directed to SBI. I cannot think better opportunity than this one. And we are actually capturing the attentions from the very young population.

So there is an approaches to younger generation of financial service collaboration and event-driven regional revitalization initiative leveraging overwhelming appeal to young people. So like World Expo, they attracted people from all around the world. And in a similar way, we could draw many turnout to -- in hosting the events.

So SBI Music Circus has hosted in Osaka and Fukuoka and hosting many music festival Japan. And the total turnout was JPY 350,000 for the event total of Osaka and Fukuoka. I was really amazed to hear this particular figure. And fireworks display is going to be renamed as SBI [indiscernible]. And we are doing Music Circus in Osaka and Sensei Osaka, where we have already hosted fireworks, and we'd like to do that in Tokyo. And of course, fireworks and Omagari Akita Prefecture is really famous, but there are more famous ones as well. On top of that, we'd like to combine with Music Circus. Well, and the host may complain that there might be too much of a turnout that they are not able to control the traffic. So we have to be really ingenious in thinking about this.

Now CoinPost, this is really a phenomenon company where the senior management of this company is actually great. And Web3 of Japan, [indiscernible] and so far, I was asked to speak in front of many people in Osaka in Tokyo, and I was sort of a [indiscernible] drawing a lot of attention. And I had some dialogue session as well. And I actually had a conversation session with [indiscernible] as well in Tokyo. So combining all keynote was 40 to 50 minutes that I always talk. I also was asked to talk about [FIN/SUM]. But I asked for a large sum of money for that because we don't have to incur -- we don't have to rely on the other conferences. -- rather, we should just host like a meeting like this, but there are so many people that they need to recognize us. And all of the non-Japanese, that's something that I intend to propose to FIN/SUM.

And companies that they want to invest, they should organize meeting with SBI Investment. And the Web3 conference that we hosted at the occasion of a CoinPost conference, -- many companies are coming in and out, and I booked a room and I did an interview and I made a decision of whether to invest or not and try to find out more information about their businesses because these are really efficient. We can identify potential portfolio companies from our point of view.

So from this point of view, events were something that was outside of my own perspectives in the past. And our investment team is going to host in -- will join in Singapore and South Korea and so forth where we need to send a group of investment team members and try to join this meeting. It is not that the participation itself is really sufficient. It is like a native player or people who are able to understand fully, we need to grow such talent going forward. Mr. Aoyama, could you stand up? Looks really young, but in many ways, he is working in this area in this field. So we want young talent to acquire this type of skills and others as well. We've been growing -- have been growing many young talents. So hiring people and try to acquire -- try to make them acquire new talents. So those that we hire and those that we hire and fall in offices, they are able to speak 2 or 3 languages.

Well, languages is just a tool, and they will have to have a capability to understand this type of new areas. And I'm asking them to write an assay for all of the new hires because time is limited, just 3 to 5 people, excellent people on the particular sector try to make them write an assay and try to read through them as a sample basis and try to identify the great talent. And I need to do such an effort in order to find a great effort. So WebEx 2025, [indiscernible] 10,000 people were joined. A number of companies who joined 2016 and May 9 and the site events were 170. In Osaka, Expo Osaka, WebEx, FinTech, Expo Osaka was jointly held and attracting over 1,000 people joined this conference.

Now to expand our overseas business foundation, expand alliance in Europe, United States and Middle East in addition to South Asia. So we've been talking about the Carlyle a while, and we've decided to expand the private credit business. So Asakura-san has been dealing with the Carlyle for a very long period of time. And now we decided to work on the private credit. So Asia market mostly, private credit is, in most cases, is something that Europe and U.S. market has been the core. But in Asia, there are some private credit business as well. So we decided to join the hands with Carlyle to do that business. And the Plug and Play founder is something that I had a dinner with the other day. And Plug and Play is really an interesting company and marking a tremendous success all through and SBI U.S. Gateway Funds. In fact, Nagada-san of Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories and Group has been working on [indiscernible]. I asked him to join and we decided to invest in this way.

When I had a dinner with the founder, I was really amazed. And right away, jointly, we have decided to establish an acceleration fund. And so what we call accelerator is really a well fit to our company. In the United States, well, Sequoia and other big venture capital exists already. And how we can access the information is probably a late stage. And Plug and Play is capturing information at the seed stage. And we should work on Plug and Play so that we can tap into the opportunity at the earlier stage, and that will potentially generate a massive profits in the future.

AI2 Incubator, this is new fund where we decided to make an investment. And fund contribution is really small, yet we need to access to information. It is -- so therefore, this amount of investment is just in cost for information. We need to pick up information regarding the cutting-edge AI development. So that's why we decided to do.

And Middle East, Saudi Arabia, in many ways, well, every time that HRH Prince Fahd comes to Japan, they secure separate room and be able to talk one-on-one. And so his royal family, Prince Fahd is actually the top of the games and others. And I got really close to the prince and BIM Capital, where we decided to establish joint venture capital. So in this area, we will work together. What we are studying is based upon Sharia law, how to formulate the fund compliant with Sharia is something that we explore. I had an experience in the [indiscernible] in Brunei. But what about the bond issuance? That's something that we explore. And UAB, I have a long acquaintances of former Petroleum Minister and also Head of Ministry, Ministry of Energy of Saudi would visit Japan. So we booked a dinner session. However, it was canceled because of the illness. However, he's going to visit once again in November. So we are poised to reenhance relationship with UAE. So established this type of company and keeping the relationship, and we are expanding our business.

Now gaming, 60% of the Saudi Arabia people are a skilled gamers and eSport competition was convened and our company's team was considered to be strong. So they joined the game, but results wasn't really good, but they were reselected for the next round. So eSport, well, when we give a challenge and there were some employees who talked about the eSports business potential, so new people who established the eSports company. So 31st of October 2025, the leading company, [Ford] Group that we entered into an eSports strategic alliance.

And in the data asset -- digital data asset, we are expanding alliances mostly for the group overseas offices using a global corridor. So we'd like to establish a great connection with the global corridor, and we tried to realize that. So components by components, we are starting to have a components across the globe, like I've been mentioning a lot, bank-related acquisitions are being made. For example, that will be beneficial for Shinsei's business or though we've already disposed, but there are beneficial impact on the Internet banks and so forth. And in that manner, we'd like to have some acquisitions.

And in the asset management field, there might be some useful know-how that we want to tap into through M&A. Now bonds and equity were provided to fund ourselves and use that fund to acquire the company. But of course, in some cases, we may result to some methods. However, becoming a part of a business, group's business, meaning that we need to do a fund raise and try to explore. But going forward, we will explore more opportunities for share exchanges. That will be considered as a very important means for acquiring a company, and we will tap into this opportunity fully. For instance, well, I should not mention about examples anymore, and I'd like to close my remarks. So 12 and 13 minutes available for Q&A. So let's move on to the Q&A. Go ahead.