Finance Minister Katayama said on 20 October that the government is not aware of any case in which leaked customer data, including images of identity documents, was used to take out a loan or open a bank account by impersonation. Special fraud using bank transfers and internet banking is already rising, Katayama said, and the ministry is watching whether the string of leaks feeds it.
What the FSA has asked of banks
On 9 October the Financial Services Agency issued an alert to financial institutions. It asks them to verify customers' identity in transactions, for example by reading IC chip data, which Katayama described as highly effective against fraud. The agency also asked institutions to strengthen cybersecurity, including risk management of contractors.
The contractor point follows actual cases. Katayama said personal data held by financial institutions leaked through unauthorised access to their contractors in three cases, involving a securities firm, a non-life insurer and a life insurer. In none of them did the intrusion start at the financial institution itself. The briefing does not name the firms or the contractors.
G7 exercise planned for 2027
Katayama said G7 finance ministers and central bank governors, meeting in Bangkok on 15 October, discussed frontier AI. They agreed to hold a tabletop exercise in 2027 so the G7 can coordinate if a cross-border cyber incident originates in frontier AI. The FSA will keep working with the NCO and other agencies and urge institutions to respond quickly, Katayama said.
Other questions: defence funding, support payments, TOPIX
Asked about reports that a corporate tax increase is under consideration to fund stronger defence, Katayama said it is still a matter for the future. The government plans to revise its three security documents this year, and Katayama said no specific funding method has been decided.
On the support-payment bill, which the questioner said would enter Diet deliberation on 20 October, Katayama said the scheme targets low- and middle-income people who are currently in work. Its eligibility and benefit levels will be set after new estimates, drawing on the National Survey of Household Structure and recent wage data. Earlier Tokyo Brief coverage
On the TOPIX overhaul, Katayama noted that JPX published the new constituents on 7 October. Katayama described the review as aimed at covering the market broadly while preserving index continuity and limiting constituents to liquid stocks, and said a specific market reaction is hard to gauge after this much time.