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Nissho Iwai Financial Link Corp. launches fund monitoring business.

Oct. 7, 2002

TOKYO(October 7, 2002)--Nissho Iwai Financial Link Corp. (NIFL) is to launch a fund monitoring service for defined contribution pension plans (Japanese 401k). NIFL is a 100% owned subsidiary of Nissho Iwai FTX Holdings Corporation (FTX), a financial business holding company in the Nissho Iwai group.

The defined contribution pension plan, in which future retirement payments depend on fund performance, is a new type of pension plan introduced into Japan in October 2001. By the end of August 2002, one hundred and fifty-five companies had adopted the plan and the number is steadily increasing. NIFL will offer companies who have adopted Japanese 401k plans a service that will evaluate and monitor funds and their performance. This continuous evaluation of chosen funds should increase the confidence of both employers and employees in their plans.

The evaluation of funds will be based on the continuous quantitative analysis of the Standard & Poors (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) database. Using this quantitative analysis, fund analysts will carry out qualitative evaluation and monitoring (investigative analysis) semi-annually. NIFL has already started monitoring the funds of a limited number of companies, and will take into account the actual responses and requests of those clients when carrying out the new service. By the year 2004, NIFL plans to monitor the funds of five or six companies, producing a revenue of over 30 million Japanese yen.

FTX is a strategic holding company for financial business and part of the Nissho Iwai group, and, whilst utilizing to the full its trading functions, plans to develop as its core activity fee business. From now on we will positively foster those activities which are specific to trading companies and make full use of financial technologies in all areas.  

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