DBS, Nishi-Nippon City Bank collaborate to support Japanese SMEs

They will offer discounting of exports bills.

Japanese bank Nishi-Nippon City Bank (NCB) recently signed a memorandum of understanding with DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank. This memorandum fosters the greater collaboration and support for Japanese SMEs in Asia.

Both banks will assist SMEs in corporate banking, account services, trade finance, and capital market advisory solutions. Aside from acting as primary advising banks, both banks would offer discounting of exports bills. Regional banks like DBS are able to meet the increasing needs of Japanese SMEs in Southeast Asia for quality regional banking services.

DBS will also issue bank guarantees such as performance and bid bonds on the back of a counter bank guarantee from NCB. In addition, DBS will provide investment banking and corporate finance advisory services to NCB corporate customers who are seeking to raise funds either through a primary or secondary listing on the Singapore Exchange.

“We opened our representative office in Singapore last March and our mission is to meet the various needs of our customers conducting business overseas. As DBS has an extensive network across Asia and expertise in serving SMEs, the partnership with DBS will help us better serve our SME clients who are expanding their business in Asia," Hiromichi Tanigawa, President of NCB said.

Small and mid-sized Japanese companies are making bigger inroads overseas, particularly into ASEAN countries. The Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, 42.8% of Japanese SMEs have increased their presence overseas in ASEAN in 2013, up from 25.5% in 2010. In the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC)’s survey in December 2015, 75.2% of small and mid-tier enterprises said that they would “strengthen and expand” their overseas business in the medium-term.

“We launched our securities business in Japan last August to act as an intermediary of investment flows between Asian corporates and Japanese investors. With this new alliance with NCB, we will be able to expand our Japanese client base to include small and medium enterprises with operations in Asia. We look forward to supporting their expansion here with our unique Asian insights and extensive network,” Sim S. Lim, Group Executive of DBS added.