Introduction

Japan’s digital native consumers don’t need a brick-and-mortar banking experience, so Minna Bank built a different bank for them—in the cloud.

Call for change

First came the digital natives. Then, the financial technology companies flexed their muscles. Next, we saw a variety of non-banking companies entering the banking field. With all of these rule changes and paradigm shifts affecting banking on a global level, Bank of Fukuoka, the core bank of the Fukuoka Financial Group (FFG), based in Kyushu, Japan, knew they needed to transform. “The number of customers visiting traditional branches of the FFG decreased by 40% over the past 10 years, while the number of customers using internet banking increased by 2.4 times over the same period,” said Koji Yokota, President, Minna Bank. To create a bank for everyone—including digital natives—FFG would have to change. But how?

FFG began by establishing iBank Marketing Corporation, a platform company to explore potential business models for the bank of the future by connecting the financial and non-financial sectors with local communities. Kenichi Nagayoshi, the founder of iBank Marketing and Director and Vice President of Minna Bank, explained:

“Our mission was to create innovative financial services, which is why we launched iBank Marketing to develop simple financial functions and digital marketing, with data and analytics at its core. Our core product app, Wallet+, has been downloaded more than 1.6 million times. We thought it was time to create a new platform for financial services now that the game is changing.”

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