Now is the time to make bold changes happen.

Katsumi Mizuno

Representative, Executive President and COO

In 2020, the economy and society were greatly affected by the pandemic. We also faced pressure to change our existing business model based on brick-and-mortar locations, which has hitherto been our strength. On the other hand, we want to turn this crisis into opportunity and shift to aggressive management all the more because our lives and values are going through such significant change. In FY2021, we will accelerate changes under Innovative, Digital, and Global as the basic concept of our management strategy.

In our new business, we will provide marketing solutions using credit card payment data via CASM Co., Ltd., a joint venture with CyberAgent, Inc., which was established on June 1, 2021. Effectively using the new core system, we will also expand our processing business by accepting contracts for various businesses, building on our capacity to handle all processes from system development to operation under contract, which is our strength. We will also take on challenges to enter new markets with multi-layered new business development encompassing such domains as advertising, healthcare and pets, which we will achieve through the integrated efforts of the Saison Group.

Among our existing businesses, in the payment business, we will look to form more alliances using the SAISON CARD Digital smartphone-based services, aim for the strategic development of the American Express brand, and expand cashless payments in the market for BtoB payments, especially payments between SMEs, where the ratio of cashless payments is still low. In the global business, we will work on initiatives to expand our business, including the full-scale launch of the credit card business in Vietnam, expansion of the digital lending business in India and Indonesia, and the resumption of aggressive investment and financing in the impact investing and CVC businesses, which have stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Redesigning Services in Response to Changes in Customers' Values and Behavioral Patterns

Kazutoshi Ono

Director, Senior Managing Executive Officer and CTO, CIO
Company-wide promotions of DX strategies
Head of Digital Innovation Division

At Credit Saison, we have been working to achieve our four DX strategies -- that is, payment business, peripheral services, in-house IT, and marketing -- with the leading role played by the Technology Center, which is our organization specializing in digital technologies. In FY2020, we promoted the shift to in-house system development for new products. For SAISON CARD Digital, Saison Gaming Card, Likeme♡by saison card, and other new products, we achieved speedy product release and service improvement, in the process from design to development and operation, with a focus on installation in smartphone apps and server-side implementation, among other elements.

In FY2021, we will move up another gear and promote a merger between the previous IT department (IT Strategy Dept.) and digital department (Technology Center), launch a series of new services as a leading-edge service company, and increase our agility in terms of systems to improve our existing services. Specifically, we will classify the subjects of our system development into: 1) systems for which we should shift to in-house development; 2) systems for which we should continue to outsource development to IT vendors, and; 3) systems that our internal digital department and IT vendors should collaborate in developing and operating, in a hybrid manner. And we plan to expand systems in 1) and 3), which we can handle on our own, one by one.

We will strive to redesign our services by making full use of IT, aiming to provide services speedily in response to changes in customers' values and behavioral patterns.

Credit Saison Digital Transformation

Set for Scale
- Reinforcing the base of existing business, aiming for further growth -

Kosuke Mori

Director, Senior Managing Executive Officer
Head of Global Business Division

In our global business, we are working to promote financial inclusion in emerging markets in Southeast Asia and other regions. HD SAISON Finance Company Ltd. in Vietnam has begun to issue HD SAISON Card credit cards, in addition to the installment credit services we already offer for items such as motorcycles and smartphones. We will win support in Vietnam by taking advantage of our expertise as a retail non-bank, which we have cultivated in Japan, aiming to issue two million cards by 2024.

Kisetsu Saison Finance (India) Pvt. Ltd. in India and Pt. Saison Modern Finance in Indonesia are expanding digital lending business through partnerships with various Fintech players. Saison Capital Pte. Ltd. in Singapore will connect funds from lending operators in various countries and those from domestic and overseas investors and accelerate its global expansion beyond national and market boundaries, through impact investing business, which contributes to achieving the SDGs, and the corporate venture capital business, in which it leads the way in investing in innovative business models.

To turn the global business into one of our revenue bases, we will strengthen the business foundations and continue to pursue initiatives for new businesses, thus diversifying our revenue sources.

Global business