Latest Tokyo Brief coverage on Rakuten Bank, Ltd., tracking filings, financial news, and market signals from Japan.
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Fintech profit jumped 47% and mobile's losses kept narrowing, pushing Rakuten Group's first-half pretax income positive for the first time in seven years, though the parent still posted a ¥10.9bn net loss.
Rakuten Bank increased its net profit target for the year to March 2027 by ¥6.8bn to ¥88.1bn, pointing to higher loan interest income and June's Bank of Japan rate rise as the main drivers.
From June 1, prefectural police can send special-fraud inquiries to participating banks online via the National Police Agency, replacing at least part of a mail-based process that often let money move from the first destination account into others before a freeze request caught up. Mizuho, MUFG, Sumitomo Mitsui, Resona, Seven, Rakuten, AEON, SBI Shinsei and Japan Post Bank are in the initial group. The point is speed, not administrative tidiness. The FSA says earlier inquiries should support earlier freezes of onward-transfer accounts and improve the chances of tracing and recovering victim funds, though the notice does not spell out response-time targets or technical standards.
The move: prefectural police can send bank inquiries through the National Police Agency online, instead of relying on mailed requests while transferred victim funds keep moving. The initial roster covers nine banks, but the release sets no response-time target or recovery metric.
From June 1, prefectural police can send special-fraud tracing inquiries online through the National Police Agency to nine participating banks, including Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Resona Bank, Seven Bank, Rakuten Bank, AEON Bank, SBI Shinsei Bank and Japan Post Bank. The point is to replace mailed and other written inquiries that often arrived after proceeds had already been moved on, giving banks and police a better shot at identifying destination accounts and freezing them sooner.
From June 1, prefectural police will be able to send online inquiries through the National Police Agency to participating banks under a new framework meant to trace, freeze and recover money lost to special fraud. The initial list covers Mizuho, MUFG, Sumitomo Mitsui, Resona, Seven Bank, Rakuten Bank, AEON Bank, SBI Shinsei Bank and Japan Post Bank. The point is speed. Authorities say the old process often relied on document-based inquiries, giving criminal groups time to move money from the first recipient account into others before banks could reply. The new setup is meant to shorten the gap between a fraud report, identification of downstream accounts and a freeze request.