Initiatives to Strengthen Asset Formation Support Functions

We will promote the upgrading of our asset management capabilities by focusing on enabling Resona Asset Management - the Group’s asset management company - to increase the sophistication of its governance systems and nurture its human resources.

Resona Asset Management was established in August 2015 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Resona Holdings. To promote the upgrading of our asset management capabilities, we have positioned this subsidiary as a key Group entity specializing in this field in line with the conviction that an asset management company must be independent from other Group entities with regard to such aspects as governance and personnel systems.

Looking ahead, we will consider the formulation of succession plans for Resona Asset Management’s top management, the introduction of additional compensation and incentive plans for its high-performance employees, and other measures aimed at enabling it to secure a higher degree of independence, realize more robust governance and undertake more effective human resource development.

We have amassed extensive know-how in pension plan design and administration as well as in asset management and administration over the course of more than 60 years of corporate pension management. We will leverage the strength of this experience to focus on such undertakings as enhancing our customer support structure for business operators implementing corporate pension plans and helping raise the awareness of persons enrolled in corporate pension plans.

The Resona Group is a retail commercial bank equipped with full-line trust banking capabilities while boasting extensive know-how amassed over the course of more than 60 years of corporate pension management in pension plan design and administration as well as asset management and administration. Leveraging these strengths, we strive to support business operators who implement, and are asset owners of, corporate defined benefit (DB) pension plans and defined contribution (DC) pension plans, providing them with access to our specialist expertise so that they can raise their asset management capabilities. We also maintain a focus on expanding our customer base for corporate pensions and helping raise awareness among persons enrolled in corporate pension plans.

Going forward, Resona Group banks will work together to deliver asset management products and pension plan operation services to a broad range of corporate customers encompassing SMEs through large enterprises . At the same time, we will assist these customers in the introduction of corporate pension plans and help them stably operate such plans even as they raise their asset management capabilities. To this end, we will provide proposals on the introduction of pension plans, support the operation of such plans and otherwise provide consulting. Furthermore, we will offer an even broader range of information to business operators who implement corporate pension plans as well as persons enrolled in such plans, furnishing them with explanatory materials, holding seminars, releasing web-based content, publishing books and employing all other tools and content available.

Ensure that the provision of our products and services is always focused on helping customers achieve stable asset formation by, for example, developing a product introduction process, upgrading incentive systems for our salespersons and enhancing opportunities available to them for training that helps raise their consulting capabilities.

The majority of individual financial assets in Japan still comprises cash and deposits. In the coming age of centenarians, supporting a major shift from savings to investment is an integral part of our mission as a financial institution.

We are equipped with a robust retail customer base that has been developed by Group banks over a long history. We will provide this customer base with services backed by the asset management know-how we have amassed in our more than 60 years of corporate pension-related operations to support stable asset formation.

We are aware that many customers understand the necessity of asset management but are uncertain about how to proceed. In response, in August 2023 we updated Resona Group App by installing additional functions designed to provide app users with proposals on savings-type investment methods in light of their targets and enable them to complete all processes in purchasing investment products. Looking ahead, we will rally the Group’s entire strength to deliver value via both face-to-face and digital channels even as we promote a retail business aimed at assisting Japan’s general public in their asset formation efforts.

We will rally Group-wide strengths to promote the widespread practice of customer-centric business management in all business fields beyond the scope of the asset formation business.

In line with its Behavior Guidelines, the Resona Group places the utmost value on helping customers realize joy and happiness and thus endeavors to deliver optimal services. We consider these efforts to be essential to securing our customers’ best interests and thus consider customer-centric business management to be an instrumental initiative. In March 2023, we updated our Fiduciary Duty Basic Policies centered on governing the asset formation business in order to increase the sophistication of this initiative. Simultaneously, we formulated Customer-Oriented Business Conduct, a set of policies applicable to all business fields. In June 2023, we updated our Fiduciary Duty Initiative Policies designed to describe specific initiatives to be undertaken by Group banks while reviewing our key strategies for the asset formation business in the context of the medium-term management plan (MMP).

We expect our employees to cultivate sophisticated specialist expertise and act with robust attention to ethics as fiduciaries entrusted with customer assets while taking a sincere and fair approach to providing high-quality financial services in line with the conviction that serving customers’ best interests means helping them realize joy and happiness. We will therefore continue undertaking fiduciary initiatives in addition to periodically reviewing our Initiative Policies and otherwise striving ensure that the business management endeavors named above translate into a widespread corporate culture.

Contribute to the enhancement of the general public’s financial literacy so that everyone can autonomously draw up life plans.

Today, functions afforded by financial institutions are increasingly considered to be of great importance in terms of helping raise the general public’s financial literacy and contributing to its financial well-being due to such changes in the social environment as a growing sense of anxiety about the future due to the low birthrate and an aging society and the increasing number of financial crimes in which younger people are victimized.

The Resona Group has been an industry pioneer in the provision of financial and economic education. For example, in 2005 we began operating Resona / Mirai Kids’ Money Academy for elementary school students. As of January 2024, the cumulative total number of children who have completed the academy’s programs amounts to approximately 46,000. Instilling robust financial literacy not only helps customers in a broad range of age groups enhance their living standards, but also contributes to the future development of regional societies and economies. Accordingly, we will remain proactive in providing this education as a financial service group that is deeply rooted in communities.

Going forward, we will strive to enhance support measures designed to instill robust financial literacy so that everyone can autonomously design their lives. To this end, we will enhance the relevant educational content while providing customers with information through our main business. In these ways, we aim to ensure that the Resona Group is our customers’ first choice in terms of seeking finance-related consultation.

Focus on further enhancing the effectiveness of stewardship activities via, for example, nurturing human resources at Resona Asset Management.

Helping Japanese corporations achieve sustainable growth and medium- to long-term improvement in corporate value is essential to enabling the country’s investment chain to fully realize its functions. With this in mind, Resona Asset Management has established the Responsible Investment Policy, referencing the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), for which the company declared its support, and Japan’s Stewardship Code, with its asset management divisions currently consolidating their insights to promote stewardship activities.

Looking ahead, we will strive to increase the sophistication of initiatives described below while enhancing the effectiveness of our stewardship activities via, for example, the in-house development of human resources tasked with engagement (especially, human resources equipped with specialist expertise in such fields as ESG). These initiatives will, in turn, enhance our ability to fulfill stewardship responsibilities.

Promote various initiatives to secure sustainable growth for Resona Holdings itself and achieve medium- to long-term improvement in corporate value.

Resona Holdings itself constitutes a component of the investment chain. With this in mind, we are promoting initiatives to achieve sustainable growth and medium- to long-term improvement in corporate value.

Moreover, Resona Holdings has adopted all principles of the Corporate Governance Code. Aiming to acquire a robust market reputation backed by a PBR of more than 1 time, we are particularly intent on robustly improving profitability and asset efficiency through, for example, the effective utilization of capital.