Information/Campaigns

SBI Remit Co., Ltd (Head office: Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors: Nobuo ANDO, hereinafter “SBI Remit”), an international remittance service business operator, announces that it has entered into a business partnership agreement with Kiraboshi Bank, Ltd. (Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President: Hisanobu WATANABE) and plans to begin providing services from October 2025.

 

 

 

■ Background and Purpose

In recent years, financial institutions have faced an increasing burden in ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) regulations, as well as the pressing need to streamline operations in response to increased workload arising from ISO 20022 compliance. In particular, international remittance services require rigorous measures from an AML/CFT perspective even for low-value transactions, which inevitably increases operational burden.

 

Meanwhile, from a customer needs perspective, there is growing demand for highly convenient services that allow remittance orders to be placed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of branch or banking hours, and that enable instant receipt of funds. Moreover, customer needs for receiving funds are diversifying beyond traditional remittances into bank accounts into various methods such as receiving funds in cash and deposits into digital wallets.

 

According to the Sibos 2022 Report, 56% of small and medium-sized enterprises conducting international remittances utilize fintech providers in addition to banks*¹, highlighting the significant potential for collaboration between banks and money transfer service providers in the Japanese cross-border remittance market.

 

Furthermore, as reported in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun morning edition of August 22, 2025, “Overseas transfers by Japan’s foreign workers to exceed 1 trillion yen,” demand for low-value remittances is expected to continue expanding in line with the growing population of foreign workers in Japan*².

 

SBI Remit’s mission is to provide highly convenient financial services to foreign residents in Japan. To this end, the company actively adopts cutting-edge financial technologies, including US Ripple’s distributed ledger technology, and provides secure, affordable, and speedy international remittance services, with remittances completed in as little as 10 minutes. SBI Remit has also acquired the banking agency business of SBI Sumishin Net Bank and offers multilingual salary deposit accounts specifically designed for foreign nationals.

 

Kiraboshi Bank, a regional financial group based in the Tokyo metropolitan area, provides comprehensive financial services to small and medium-sized enterprises and individual customers while operating the largest network of branches among regional financial institutions in Tokyo. Through this partnership, customers of Kiraboshi Bank, including not only Japanese customers but also foreign nationals employed at local businesses, will gain access to SBI Remit’s low-value international remittance services, enhancing customer convenience and contributing to greater financial inclusion.

 

By combining the trust from the local community cultivated by Kiraboshi Bank with SBI Remit’s advanced financial technologies, we are confident that this partnership will provide a secure, swift, and user-friendly financial infrastructure for customers in the Tokyo metropolitan area, including both Japanese users and foreign communities.

 

SBI Remit will continue to develop and provide convenient services that meet the diverse needs of customers, including foreign residents in Japan, in line with the SBI Group’s goal of delivering new value through a customer-centric approach.

 

*¹ Swift News, Vol.6 December 2022, p.11 (Sibos 2022 Report)

https://www.swift.com/ja/swift-japanese/tokiyumentosenta

*² Payment Reports (BOP item number: 615); “Survey on Personal Transfers”, Bank of Japan

https://www.boj.or.jp/en/statistics/outline/exp/data/exbpsm6.pdf

 

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