Cash Management in Japan

Cash management in Asia Pacific varies by country, not region. This is particularly true of Japan, where local knowledge and experience is of prime importance. Market practices, the language and the culture are unique; and this is a consideration when contemplating the implementation of cash management solutions in Japan, where a spirit of practicality often trumps theoretical or internationally accepted solutions.

Macroeconomically, the world’s second-largest economy in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) has been showing signs of real recovery. The government and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) have declared in August 2005 that the Japanese economy has emerged from the temporary lull after the long downturns known as the ‘lost decade’, however some economists have refrained from such optimistic comments because of continuing inventory corrections in the information technology sector. The Nikkei stock index has showed bank stocks rising to their highest levels in more than five years.

The government has demonstrated a willingness to promote foreign direct investment into Japan, with JETRO (Japan External Trade Organisation), a government-related organisation originally established principally to promote Japanese exports abroad now shifting its focus towards encouraging foreign direct investment into the country. An imperative based on Prime Minister Koizumi’s target to double this level of foreign direct investment within the five years from 2003 to 2008.

In terms of treasury management, Japanese multinational companies (MNCs) continue to develop and demand increasingly sophisticated cash management practices. Domestically, Japanese banks still dominate in terms of payment volumes. However, increasing investments into Japan have given major overseas banks the upper hand in offering their cash management services locally to non-Japanese corporate customers because of advantages such as their higher credit ratings, globally consistent expertise and robust security technologies.

Banking System

Japanese major banks are still the prime players in the banking system, particularly in the corporate banking area. Mizuho is currently the largest domestic bank in terms of total assets but will be relegated to second place by the planned merger between Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc (MTFG) and UFJ Holdings Inc (UFJ) in January 2006. The merger will form the world’s largest bank in terms of total assets with JPY190 trillion.

As well as these ‘city banks’, there also exists a large network of provincial banks consisting of 64 first-tier institutions and 48 in a second tier banks, as well as 28 trust and long-term credit banks. This entire sector should slowly shrink because of ongoing consolidation.

Opportunity is also being grasped by a further seven-strong emergent group of banks, including: the IY Bank Co of the Ito Yokado group, eBank, the Japan Net Bank and Sony Bank. These institutions are operating internet and automated teller machine-focused business models for financial consumer services.

The outstanding bad loans at Japanese banks have declined for the third consecutive year, especially at major banks, which have exhibited a 45% decrease to a current figure of JPY7.6 trillion. However, the BOJ is still using cheap money to tackle deflation and stimulate growth, with official interest rates remaining at or close to zero, and the BOJ’s monthly average collateralised overnight deposit call rate still stalled at 0.001% as it has been since 2001.

Clearing Systems

Japan boasts three systems for yen electronic funds transfers and maintains a single main paper-based system.

BOJ-NET

BOJ-NET is mainly used for interbank settlements, and also covers Japanese government bond settlements. However, customers can also conduct business on a real-time gross settlement basis. The system is owned and operated by the BOJ, with settlement occurring between member banks’ current BOJ accounts. As of March 2004, 435 financial institutions were participating in BOJ-NET. Interbank transfers account for just over 90% of payment volumes through BOJ-NET, with the Foreign Exchange Yen Clearing System (FXYCS), Zengin and clearing houses being responsible for the remaining portion with 3.6%, 2.5% and 2.4% respectively, a ratio that has remained unchanged since March 2003.

Foreign Exchange Yen Clearing System

The Foreign Exchange Yen Clearing System (FXYCS) handles yen (JPY) payments resulting from international financial transactions and payments involving non-resident entities, including foreign exchange transactions, JPY-denominated bond transactions and import and export settlement.

FXYCS is similar to the CHIPS (the bank-owned Clearing House Interbank Payment System for large-value payments) and operates as a net settlement system, and the data format used is similar to that used by SWIFT. The cut-off time for sending payments is 1.45pm, with final settlement through BOJ-Net at 2:30pm. The Tokyo Bankers Association (TBA) owns and operates FXYCS, and also takes on the counterparty risk for payment settlements on a transaction-by-transaction basis. As of June 2005, there were 225 participants in FXYCS, however only 33 members were direct participants, including HSBC.

Early cut-off times and unfavourable time differentials with London, means that the net settlement mode of FXCYS does not facilitate payment through CLS, but it does operate on a gross basis until 5:00pm. However, use of late payments by gross mode is limited, and can create problems if a receiving bank refuses to accept the late payment as the underlying customer may then face overnight overdraft costs. In addition, some banks have started charging intra-day liquidity charges based on the intra-day overdrawn positions created prior to receiving funds from the CLS Bank late in the afternoon.

A further reason for the decrease in the value of transactions handled by FXYCS appears to be the activities of the CLS. Figures for 2004 declined 11% compared with 2003, and quarterly figures continue to fall with 2005 numbers looking to be 12% lower than 2004 figures. Other responsible factors could be market consolidation and the outsourcing of some large foreign FXCYS members to Japanese banks.

Zengin system

The unique Zengin system is the dominant domestic JPY payment system, characterised by formats based on Japanese katakana characters. As with the FXYCS, it is managed by the TBA and is a net-settlement system, with 4:15pm daily settlement, 45 minutes subsequent to the payment cut- off time between members. As of June 2005, it boasted 1,595 member institutions including four foreign direct bank members, including HSBC. In addition to single payments, bulk payments are also supported for payroll, dividends and pension payments. Zengin volumes may fall following the upcoming MTFG-UFJ’s major merger as a larger percentage of payments will be processed in-house, not via the Zengin system.

ANSER system

The ANSER (Answer Network System for Electrical Requests) is not a clearing system in itself, but it allows users to view balances of resident JPY accounts held at multiple ANSER-enabled banks and initiate real-time Zengin transfers between these accounts. The bulk of Japanese financial institutions are members of ANSER, which is run by NTT DATA, but so far only three foreign banks have made the major investment needed to join the system in the local market.

Cheque and promissory note clearing

Promissory note use is more common than the comparatively rare use of cheques in Japan, although clearing houses facilitate processing for both. Promissory note default is regarded as a serious matter; with two non-payments resulting in a company being banned from the entire banking system. The use of paper instruments peaked in 1990 at JPY4,797 trillion and usage has declined steadily to 2004’s figure of JPY417 trillion.

Taxation, Legal and Regulatory Environment

The maximum effective tax rate – after amalgamating corporation tax, inhabitants’ tax, enterprise tax and allowing for business tax deductions – is 40.69%. A withholding tax of 20% applies to dividends (reducing to 7% for listed shares being held within a certain ownership ratio), inter-company loan interest and royalty payments to non-residents. A 15% withholding tax is applied on all bank deposit interest to non-residents, but there are over 55 bilateral double taxation treaties in place that can reduce the withholding tax rate. To avoid falling foul of transfer-pricing regulations all inter-company transactions must be made at ‘arm’s length’.

A 5% consumption tax applies to banking charges associated with domestic transactions, and has to be an element of any quoted price. The requirement for the reporting to the Ministry of Finance of transfers from residents to non-residents remains unchanged from the 2003 threshold of JPY30m.

Common Cash Management Problems and Issues

Language

The Zengin’s importance as the main domestic JPY payment system makes the fact that it is solely a Japanese language system even more critical. Many of the major international enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have Japanese-language modules that allow the generation of payment files in the Japanese Zengin bulk payment format. Japanese banks, as well as a select number of foreign banks, can accept a payment file in this format and straight-through process these payments. If a company does not have access to an ERP system that can generate a payment file in the Zengin format, international banks have developed mapping tables, where pre-registered beneficiary names in English are automatically mapped to the correct name in Japanese when the payment is submitted for processing.

Residency of accounts

The payment systems are segregated between resident and non-resident, thus reducing the rationale for non-resident entities to hold accounts in Japan. Not only are the ‘know your customer’ requirements growing more restrictive on companies wishing to open accounts in Japan, but the cost of making an international cross-border payment by telegraphic transfer is similar to making an FXYCS payment. As such, there may not be a clear cost-benefit reason for non-residents to open non-resident accounts in Japan.

Cash concentration vs notional pooling

While cash concentration on an automated or manual basis between accounts within and across banks in Japan is common, notional pooling remains effectively impossible as the tax treatment remains quite vague. While several banks can technically offer notional pooling, cash concentration with zero or pegged balances remains the most widely used liquidity management technique. A couple of major Japanese banks have developed in-house bank systems called ‘cash management systems’ which track inter-company positions, produce reports and calculate interest payments between entities. Some can also effect the sweeping instructions and generate interest entries.

Reconciliation

One of the biggest differences in corporate market practices between Japan and elsewhere in the rest of the world is in the treatment of the reconciliation of accounts receivable. Historically, important Japanese corporate purchasers frequently pay ad hoc amounts at their own convenience, often disregarding the particulars of invoiced amounts. This creates problems for suppliers who wish to reconcile payments against invoices, particularly since even when there is payment against a specific invoice, the only information routinely supplied in Zengin payments is the payer’s name.

While the Zengin system has a dedicated Zengin EDI (electronic data interchange) field that could be used for reconciliation purposes, it rarely is, and indeed some bank systems do not even support this field for payments or reporting. In an effort to assist reconciliation, one local bank has patented a system where virtual accounts are used. However, this only really assists the supplier in identifying who has paid, rather than what they have paid for.

Tax and utility payments

The payment of clients’ tax and utility bills remains a problem for foreign banks, and the lack of this ability means such a bank’s client will have to open an account with a local bank to handle this business. The difficulty in tax collection is because approval to collect a given tax is required from the appropriate tax-collecting authority for each type of tax. There are both government and local tax layers with over 50 different tax offices, as well as several different types of taxes (e.g. land tax, income tax, corporate tax, withholding tax, road tax, etc.). Each tax-collecting authority has to give approval to collect the type of tax for which proven volume estimates are required. Naturally, it is difficult for foreign banks with their small market presence to meet the minimum volume requirements, thus preventing foreign banks from gaining approval to collect taxes and hence being able to offer their customers a single banking solution.

Direct debits

According to the Japanese Banker’s Association (JBA) statistics, direct debits make up more than 50% of the non-cash payments market. However, this statistic is somewhat misleading, as while such ‘direct debits’ are common in terms of individuals paying telephone bills, utilities, rent, credit card bills and other such bills, each arrangement has to be set up between the invoicing company, the direct debit agent and the collecting bank. As there is no single unified direct debit system, it can be difficult to set up this arrangement, with customers perhaps having to open new bank accounts with recognised collecting banks for a given direct debit agent. There are not many agreements in place between direct debit agents and foreign banks due to the comparatively small number of customers foreign banks have. Furthermore, as payment files are split between banks and semi-manually processed, it can take weeks to collect funds rather than days.

Interbank liquidity

Finally, there are two almost contradictory issues in the market in Japan that have developed over the past couple of years. First, with the low-interest environment and easy monetary policy, the banking system is awash with liquidity. Some foreign banks, whose higher credit ratings have led to large increases in their deposit base over the past few years, coupled with the negative overnight rate, have developed a practice of discouraging large depositors by levying fees on holding large balances. Second, while overnight liquidity is high, at times, intra-day liquidity can be tight. Particularly as a result of large CLS receipts which are not received until after the close of FXYCS. This has led banks to develop systems to measure and charge for intra-day liquidity usage. Market practice is still being developed, and no one method of charging for intra-day liquidity has been agreed upon. Indeed, the same bank may have different charging mechanisms for different clients.

Cash Management Developments

Electronic banking

Some foreign banks have developed both English and Japanese Internet delivery channels. This is particularly useful for MNCs because expatriate management can view screens in English while the local staff can view in Japanese for payment input. Dual-language customer service also aids such an arrangement.

Japanese banks’ electronic banking, generically called ‘firm banking’, generally lags behind international banks’ delivery channels with separate systems for domestic and international payments and at times, lesser security standards and/or a lack of remote international authorisation capability.

New payments system under consideration

A high-value, low-value payment system has been under review by the JBA, the TBA and the BOJ. The latest discussions appear to show that the Zengin will remain in place as the low-value payments system with a new BOJ-NET hybrid settlement system being introduced for payments over JPY5bn. The target date for implementation is 2008.

Accounts receivable trading

Accounts receivable trading is an initiative that the government is keen to develop, which will eliminate the need for paper-based promissory notes. NTT DATA, which provides the ANSER system, is already developing a system using a common platform, while the Shinkin Central Bank has also started offering a system of electronic promissory notes; however, this initiative has yet to become widely accepted.

Requests for proposals

There is little doubt that Japanese corporations are becoming more sophisticated and demanding in their cash and treasury management aspirations. Issuance of formal requests for proposals (RFPs) are becoming a more common means of selecting partner banks, and the scope of RFPs is getting wider.

Foreign banks may have the edge in terms of global investment in payments and cash management product ranges, but domestic banks have the historic relationships and market dominance in Japan. A small number of foreign banks can, however, hold their own in the local market and offer both Japanese and MNCs solutions, which cover the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan. As far as Japanese names go, capabilities and presence in China are key areas at present and competition here is expected to be fierce.

Conclusion

Despite its ‘lost decade’, Japan is still the world’s second-largest economy. Its recent signs of recovery, stock rise and reduced bad debts of Japanese banks have finally started helping bolster the domestic banking market. While foreign banks still have only a small share of the cash management market in Japan, they have been buttressed by growing inward investment and are offering their cash management services more frequently to international non-Japanese corporate customers as well as continuing to support selected Japanese multinationals in their offshore cash management requirements.