Outline of business alliance. Yahoo Japan and Japan Net Bank will jointly develop and provide new products and services with their customers by leveraging their brand names, customer bases, expertise, and experiences. As a first step, Yahoo Japan and Japan Net Bank will provide participants in the Internet “Yahoo! Auction” with a new service to enhance user convenience of payment and settlement. The new service will enable a successful bidder participating in “Yahoo! Auction” to easily specify seller’s bank account and remit the purchase price if both of them have bank accounts at Japan Net Bank. Two companies will advance the preparations with a target of introducing the new service in November 2006. In addition, Yahoo Japan will provide advanced, secure and convenient settlement and financial services closely linked to its current services and “Yahoo! Japan ID.” On the other hand, Japan Net Bank will try to improve user convenience and increase its customer base by offering more user friendly Internet-based payment and settlement services reflecting users’ consumption patterns.
Outline of business alliance. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (“SMBC”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SMFG, and Promise will join forces with the aim of providing consumer loan products starting in April 2005 as described below. Under the same timeline, Promise will commence guaranteeing loans to be extended by The Japan Net Bank Limited (“JNB”). Talks on other business alliances between SMFG group companies and Promise are moving forward and the specifics will be decided accordingly.
Outline of business alliance. 1. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (“SMBC”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SMFG, and Promise will jointly develop new consumer loan models in order to capture immediate cashing needs of a wide range of customers, including first-timers. SMBC and Promise will provide several types of loans with different levels of interest rates and quickly make loans due to fast credit approval process. SMBC and Promise will significantly grow consumer finance business by providing convenient loan products with interest rates ranging from 8% to around 12% through SMBC’s marketing channels. At the same time, SMBC and Promise plan to establish a new joint venture (tentative name: SMBC Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. “SMBCCF”) for promoting loan products with interest rates ranging from 15% to 18%. Promise, with its experience in consumer finance business, will fully support SMBC and SMBCCF by guaranteeing their loan products, as well as providing expertise in marketing, credit monitoring and loan collection. SMBC will set up consumer loan counters and install loan processing machines to be developed by Promise at its branches. Furthermore, SMFG and Promise will cooperate to utilize their respective network infrastructures.
