The CEO of Daiwa Securities believes that Japan should allow cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds to enter the local market. Daiwa is one of several companies pushing for the approval of cryptocurrency ETFs in Japan.

According to Bloomberg a report Published on December 24 Akihiko Ogino, CEO of Japan's second-largest brokerage, said in an interview: Japan Should be allowed to Crypto ETFs To "debut in the country."

At the time of writing, Daiwa itself has an index-based ETF in the Japanese market, called the Daiwa ETF Nikkei 225. Despite this, Ogino has not revealed any plans for Daiwa to start offering its own cryptocurrency-backed ETF. .

Daiwa isn't the only company pushing for cryptocurrency ETFs. Last October, major Japanese financial companies, such as Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui and Nomura Securities, supported a new plan. an offer Which asked the Japanese government to give priority to Bitcoin (Bitcoin) and Ethereum (Ethereum) for cryptocurrency-backed ETFs.

However, many believe that it still is difficult For Japan to embrace crypto-backed ETFs due to “regulatory restrictions” as well as negative perception towards cryptocurrencies due to past events such as Mt.Gox and DMM.

Additionally, Ogino predicted that the Japanese central bank appears intent on tightening monetary policies further as corporate profits begin to grow alongside early signs of inflation.

Daiwa expects the Bank of Japan to increase interest rates in January next year by 25 basis points, from 0.25% to 0.5%. The brokerage also expects the central bank to raise the interest rate again by the end of 2025 to 0.75%.

Based on the Bank of Japan's reduction in Japanese government debt purchases, Ogino concluded that "the volume of bonds available to the market will increase, which is likely to stimulate trading."

Daiwa is currently having difficulty making profits in its Chinese market. Ogino said it was "a bit questionable" whether the brokerage would be able to turn a profit in the coming new year. Hence, the company is exploring ways to become profitable in 2026 instead.

“The truth is that the pace of the Chinese market over the past year was not as good as expected,” Ogino adds.

According to official data, the combined revenue of securities companies in China fell by 9% to 203.3 billion yuan ($27.9 billion) in the first half compared to the previous year.

In addition, the company stated that it will raise employee wages in April 2025 to “about 5% or perhaps more.” The CEO said the company wants to "adequately develop and train" its current employees to successfully trade yen prices, without having to add new employees.