TOKYO: The Diet, Japan's parliament, Friday enacted a bill to simplify registration procedures for new entrants offering financial services mainly via smartphones.

The bill to revise the financial instruments sales law was approved at a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet.

The government hopes to improve user convenience by promoting the new entry of fintech firms offering financial services using information technology at a time when digitization is accelerating.

The revised law will allow business operators to make necessary registrations in a single procedure to handle government bonds, housing loans and other financial products linked to daily living. Currently, they need to make such registrations for each sector, including securities, banks and insurance.

A license system to allow cashless service providers other than banks to transfer amounts over 1 million yen has also been introduced under the revised law.

A supplementary resolution calling for sufficient consideration to financial service users has been adopted for the revised law. It seeks appropriate supervision over measures to prevent multiple debts and block funding to terrorists as well as systems to manage customer information.

JIJI Press