Regulatory Reforms For Payment Services And One-Stop Financial Services Brokerage

1. Introduction

On December 20, 2019, the Financial Services Agency of Japan (the "FSA") released a report by the "Working Group on Regulations for Payment Services Providers and One-Stop Financial Services Brokers" under the Financial System Council (the "FSC Report"),¹ which recommended various regulatory reforms for payment services (such as e-money) as well as the introduction of a regulatory framework for one-stop financial service brokerage that covers the banking, non-bank money-lending, securities, and insurance industries. Based on the recommendations in the FSC Report, on March 6, 2020, the Japanese government submitted to the Diet (Japan's parliament) a bill to amend the Act on Sales, etc., of Financial Instruments, the Payment Services Act, and other relevant statutes (the "ASFI/PSA Amendment Bill").²