Unbanked's board decided on November 12 who will sit on the third-party special investigation committee the company first announced in July. The three members are outside lawyers with no interest in the company or the people under investigation, according to the half-year report filed on November 13.
What the committee will look at
The July announcement limited the inquiry to one outside individual and associates, and asked whether that person had real influence over management. The new board has dropped that limit. The committee is now meant to find the root cause of the internal-control failures that led to the special-attention designation, and the company says it will leave the scope and the people examined to the committee. The start date, duration and timing of any published findings are undecided. Corrective and preventive measures will be disclosed after the results.
The committee was first resolved by the board on June 26. The board changed after an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on September 30. For earlier events, see Earlier Tokyo Brief coverage.
The listing clock
The Tokyo Stock Exchange designated the shares a special-attention issue from May 26 and charged a ¥14.4mn listing contract penalty. It cited ¥1.34bn of unpaid receivables from gold scrap trades between July and November 2025. The designation runs in principle for one year. At the review, the exchange can lift it if no control problem is found, and in principle delists the company if one is.
The financial backdrop
For the six months to September 30, sales fell 4.8% to ¥3.92bn. The company posted an operating loss of ¥288mn and a net loss attributable to owners of ¥284mn, against ¥1.16bn a year earlier. Operating cash outflow was about ¥1.0bn. New share issues brought in ¥458mn, and shares issued on the exercise of warrants brought in ¥859mn. The report flags material uncertainty about the company's ability to continue as a going concern, and its auditor draws attention to the same point without changing its review conclusion.
The board also resolved on October 16 to end its Kinka gold-linked crypto-asset business and plans to liquidate three related entities, including an overseas subsidiary. The bank-account withdrawal suspension was lifted on September 2, and gold bullion trading has resumed.