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On February 13, 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 23rd meeting of the Council on Investments for the Future at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
At the meeting, a discussion was held on developing rules for the digital market, and on Fintech and the financial sector.
 
Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
 “Today, we first held a discussion about developing rules for the digital market. The volume of data circulating around the world has increased rapidly in recent years. Digital platform enterprise significantly opens up the possibilities to access global markets for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, and individual users. Meanwhile, it is said that users are confronted by difficulties in individual negotiations, unilateral changes made to the terms and conditions, and high costs of use.
 
For this reason, it is necessary to establish laws or guidelines to ensure transparency and fairness in trade practices. In the digital market, there are also concerns that data monopoly may inhibit competition and this calls for a similar response. We would like to develop a new system to address issues such as the government’s coordination over its competition policies for the digital market, departing from conventional thinking derived from government silos, so as to meet the demand of highly-specialized knowledge and expertise and enable swift responses in the accelerating changes in the digital market.
 
Secondly, we held a discussion related to the financial sector. The current legal framework, which is divided by the type of business, such as banks and remittance service providers, prevents new entrants from providing services flexibly. For various areas including payment, we aim to consider a bill for the reorganization of the regulatory framework as soon as possible.
 
With respect to these points, I would like to determine our policy with the action plan to implement the Growth Strategy, which will be complied this summer. I ask Minister Motegi, Minister of Finance Aso who is present here today, and the relevant stakeholders to proceed with due considerations in a concrete manner.”