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SBI Remit Co., Ltd (Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director: Yoshinori Kimura, hereinafter “SBI Remit”), an international remittance service business operator, announces that it has entered into a business partnership agreement with Shonan Shinkin Bank (President: Seiichi Washio) and will begin providing services from October 16, 2023.

■ Background and Purpose

With the normalization of Japan’s border measures following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a dramatic recovery in the number of foreign workers, with more than 1.82 million as of the end of October 2022*¹. The need for foreign workers is also increasing in Kanagawa Prefecture, where both the total population and the working-age population are projected to decline, making securing human resources a major issue for companies in the region. Both the number of foreign workers and the number of businesses employing foreign workers in Kanagawa Prefecture have reached record highs of 105,973 and 19,503, respectively, reflecting the growing demand in the labor market for foreign talent*².

SBI Remit’s mission is to provide highly convenient international remittance services to foreign residents in Japan, primarily in the form of remittances to foreign residents’ home countries. We are actively utilizing advanced financial technology, such as US Ripple’s distributed ledger technology, to improve customer convenience by providing affordable, speedy remittance services, customer support in 12 languages, and other services.

Meanwhile, Shonan Shinkin Bank is a regional financial institution headquartered in the cosmopolitan city of Yokosuka, with branches in the Tokyo metropolitan area spanning Tokyo and Kanagawa prefectures. Kanagawa Prefecture has the fourth largest number of foreign residents in Japan after Tokyo, Aichi, and Osaka. Kanagawa also has a large number of manufacturing companies, 61% of which have “less than 30 employees”, and with these companies employing 35.7% of all foreign workers in the prefecture*², foreign nationals represent an irreplaceable presence for small- and medium-sized enterprises in the region. Shonan Shinkin Bank is committed to achieving financial inclusion by partnering with the national government, local governments, and industry and academic organizations to provide solutions to the various issues facing small- and medium-sized enterprises, such as labor shortages, as well as providing international remittances and other solutions to the diverse local community.

Under such circumstances, this business partnership was formed as mutual use of both parties’ network and strengths would allow Shonan Shinkin Bank to offer highly convenient international money transfer services that deliver convenience for foreign nationals working at local companies while enabling SBI Remit to develop new markets.

SBI Remit will continue to place top priority on customer needs and strive to deliver new value through a customer-centric approach.

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