New rules, public consultations, subsidies and regulator actions in Japan, in English.
Draft guidance for CPAs and audit firms expands the frame from money laundering and terrorist financing to include proliferation financing, and it lays out checks on customer identity, beneficial owners, high-risk transactions and recordkeeping. The agency explicitly roots the approach in FATF-style risk-based controls, but the packet does not show a final timetable.
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 FSA's May 29 draft widens the framework for certified public accountants and audit firms from money laundering and terrorist financing to include proliferation financing, and it ties the approach to FATF's risk-based standard. The draft sets out transaction-time confirmation, customer and beneficial-owner checks, extra scrutiny for high-risk cases and recordkeeping, so firms have a fairly clear direction of travel even if the rulebook is not final yet.
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.
At its May 19-20 meeting in Basel, the Basel Committee agreed to publish a report on responses to non-malicious ICT incidents, advanced a targeted review of banks' crypto-asset exposures and considered targeted revisions to liquidity-risk principles. It also flagged private-credit interconnectedness and AI's ability to strengthen, or accelerate, cyber incidents, a reminder that supervisors are treating tech risk and old-fashioned funding risk as part of the same agenda.
The FSA added a Q&A saying banks on the standardized approach may reflect the credit-risk mitigation effect of qualifying financial collateral sitting inside a corporate-value collateral package, provided they can show supervisors how the relevant security interests are maintained and reviewed. In the same note, the agency says exposures covered by NEXI insurance can be treated under the standardized approach as backed by a government guarantee. For banks using internal ratings-based models, the clarification is slightly broader: qualifying financial collateral or qualifying asset collateral inside the pledged asset pool may be recognised, again subject to case-by-case judgment and a documented control framework around the collateral rights.
The FSA has opened public comment on a draft amendment that would let certain financial-statement information count as provided if investors can access it electronically for five years from the statutory notice. The proposed route is tied to internet-based public transmission methods and would apply only if the investment corporation's articles allow it. It is still a draft, not a live rule. But the proposal is a clear sign that disclosure compliance for investment corporations is being redesigned around continuous online availability rather than one-off paper delivery.
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.
The FSA published the outputs from its work on ISSB-related discussions, including a report on the September 2025 Sustainability Standards Advisory Forum. Even through the rough extracted text, the visible agenda clusters around support for IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 adoption, climate-related transition-plan disclosure and links to the GHG Protocol — a useful sign that the debate has moved from principle to reporting mechanics.
The Basel Committee's May 19-20 meeting produced one finished document and two live workstreams. It agreed to publish a report on ICT risk management, said a targeted review of banks' crypto-asset exposure standards had advanced, and said it is considering targeted revisions to liquidity-risk principles. The committee also said the global banking system remains resilient, supported by capital and liquidity, while flagging geopolitical uncertainty, private-credit interconnections and AI-related cyber risk as issues that still warrant close supervisory attention.
The agency’s new Q&A says some collateral inside a company-value pledge can count toward credit-risk mitigation, and NEXI-backed exposures can be treated as government-guaranteed for capital purposes, subject to the stated rule conditions.
The FSA is seeking comments on a draft rule that would let investment corporations deliver certain statement information electronically, provided it stays online for five years and the articles of incorporation permit it.
Bottom line: the committee’s May meeting did not rewrite bank rules, but it did show where supervisors remain focused, from operational resilience and non-malicious tech outages to crypto exposures, liquidity principles, private-credit linkages and AI-shaped cyber risk.
NEF is taking a second round of applications for a FY2026 subsidy that helps local governments pay for hydropower site surveys, feasibility work, and design before they tender operators. The window runs from May 27 to June 26, 2026.
The new program is designed to help private firms prove circular-economy ideas and then invest in the equipment to scale them. It targets recycled-material supply, eco-design products, CE commerce, and information-sharing systems, with a maximum subsidy of ¥40 million and applications open from May 29 to June 30, 2026.
IP360’s overseas expansion support window is open through June 19. The grant backs projects led by four or more content IP rights holders, covers half of eligible costs, and tops out at ¥200 million.
The IP360 promotion-support grant is accepting its second round through June 19 at 5 p.m. It is aimed at content IP rights holders doing company-led promotion to grow foreign fan bases, with support covering half of eligible costs up to ¥20 million.
Tokyo’s Financial Services Agency has finalized post-comment wording for small short-term insurer supervision. The key takeaway: the sector will follow the larger-insurer playbook where appropriate, but the FSA says it will also keep sector-specific differences where business models justify them, especially around what counts as an impermissible special benefit.
The move: revised FSA guidance makes sales oversight a daily operational test, from solicitor training and customer-information controls to agency audits, remediation deadlines and special-benefit restrictions.
The Financial Services Agency told bank groups to keep four items front and center in March 2026: support cash flow for stressed borrowers, stay ready for market volatility, harden disaster response for a Nankai Trough event and use the newly revised regional finance and restructuring guidance.
The latest FSA tally shows Japanese banks approved 96.9% to 98.9% of SME loan-condition changes and 91.0% to 94.0% of household mortgage changes through April. Regional banks carried the biggest volume, and the agency notes some cases in the tables were received before March, so the counts are not a pure one-month snapshot.
The move: if finalized, the FSA's draft would require certified public accountants and audit firms to formalize customer due diligence, beneficial-owner checks, higher-risk transaction handling and record retention, while expanding the framework to include proliferation financing.
The move: The FSA says shared rules for small amount and short term insurance providers should generally match the treatment given to insurance companies. The catch is that commission formulas and agent audits remain under scrutiny, even without a word-for-word transplant of the larger-insurer clause.
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.