IR Information

Joint Establishment of "Financial Portal Site"

The Sakura Bank, Ltd. (Akishige Okada, president), the Nomura Securities, Co., Ltd.(Junichi Ujiie, president), Nippon Life Insurance Co. (Ikuo Uno, president) and Mitsui Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. (Takeo Inokuchi, president) have reached a basic agreement to jointly establish "Portal Site" as a highly reliable allied unit of "No. 1 brands", which can multilaterally provide customers with the contents and services focusing on the area of "Finance" at one-stop on the Internet.

Aiming at realizing a high convenience from the customers' viewpoint and at establishing/providing multilateral financial services beyond the framework of each business field, each participating company will jointly work for constructing the Financial Portal Site in the first-half of FY 2000.

Each participating company will do its utmost to expand services and plan to increase the number of participating companies.

1.Background of Establishing Financial Portal Site

Reaching the era of the network "revolution", as it were, as seen in the fact that the Internet users in Japan exceeded 20 million at the end of last year, the Internet has already been an essential tool in our daily life. Under such circumstances, the needs for one-stop-shopping on certain web site which satisfies the customers will increase from now on.
On the other hand, it is also pointed out that the more one expands the scope of business on web site, the weaker its specialty becomes.

Therefore, focusing on the specific area of "Finance", Japanese top class financial Institutions with their brand powers and solid trust in each business field, have reached an agreement to jointly establish a portal site to provide customers with all necessary finance-related products/ services at one-stop, based on their own Home Pages and financial contents.

We consider this plan will enhance customers' satisfaction through providing them with highly value-added services and, at the same time, this plan will be important to promote advanced and multilateral financial services in accordance with the movement of the network society.

2.Outlines of Financial Portal Site

Portal Site, "Entrance" to the Internet, will enable customers to access various products, services and information related to "Finance" from one site.
Each participating company with its strong brand power and broad customer base in each financial sector will bring and display their respective contents at the Financial Portal Site on the Internet.

This joint business will enable each participating company to provide customers with highly value-added financial services beyond its business field, by producing maximum synergy effects through gathering respective contents and its current strong customer base and, at the same time, it would enable the company to make cross marketing and advertisement to a broader customer base through this portal site. This site will become an effective tool for each company to acquire new customers.

Name:

(Formal name will be announced later.)

Start of Service:

During the first-half of FY 2000

Contents:

"Financial Portal Site" with a new brand as an "entrance" to Home Pages/Internet business pages of each company.

Purpos:

(1)	Realize one-stop and multilateral financial services on Internet with the role of access channels, where users can freely access to Home Pages /Services provided by each participating company.
(2)	Try to make customers visit repeatedly and maximize staying hours, by strengthening a function of Portal Site of its own.

Functions:

(1)	As a function of Portal Site of its own, provide customers with "My Financial Home Page" by customer, where he/she can see a list of the status of his/her business with each company, by customizing it according to the needs of the customer himself /herself.
(2)	Operate the most attractive and fresh financial site,by gathering popular contents of each company together.
(3)	Notify new /recommending products of each participating company.
(4)	Supply financial information, etc.

Operation:

Its operation will be managed by IBM Japan, Ltd

Participating
Companies:

The Sakura Bank, Ltd.
The Nomura Securities Co., Ltd
Nippon Life Insurance Co.
Mitsui Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.

Also, a leading foreign banking group, and the Sumitomo Bank, Ltd. with whom Sakura Bank announced a strategic alliance in October '99, are currently considering for their participation in this portal site. Further, we plan to broadly invite other participants to this portal site, such as information service companies, merchandise sales malls, etc., in addition to financial institutions.