Daiwa Securities CEO pushes for Japan crypto ETF approval amidst slumping China profits

Daiwa Securities CEO believes Japan should allow crypto exchange-traded funds to enter the local market. Daiwa is one of many companies pushing for Japan to approve crypto ETFs.

Akihiko Ogino, Chief Executive Officer of Japan’s second-largest brokerage firm, said in an interview that Japan should allow crypto ETFs to be “launched in the country,” according to a Bloomberg report published on Dec. 24.

At the time of this writing, Daiwa had an index-based exchange-traded fund in the Japanese market labeled Daiwa ETF Nikkei 225. However, Ogino did not announce any plans for Daiwa to begin populating its own crypto-backed ETF.

Daiwa isn’t the only firm backing crypto ETFs. Last October, major Japanese financial firms such as Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Nomura securities supported a proposal asking the Japanese government to prioritize Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) for crypto-backed ETFs.

However, many people believe that Mt. He believes that it is still difficult for Japan to adopt crypto-backed ETFs due to “regulatory restrictions” as well as the negative perception towards crypto due to past events such as Gox and DMM.

In addition, Ogino predicted that the central bank of Japan appears determined to tighten monetary policies further as corporate profits begin to rise with the first signs of inflation.

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

Based on the BOJ’s tapering of purchases of Japanese government bonds, Ogino concluded that “the volume of bonds available in the market will increase, which will likely stimulate trading.”

Daiwa is currently struggling to make a profit in the Chinese market. Ogino said it was “somewhat questionable” whether the brokerage would be able to turn a profit in the coming new year. Therefore, the firm is exploring ways to turn a profit in 2026 instead.

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

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

Additionally, the company stated that it will increase employee wages to “about 5% or perhaps more” in April 2025. The CEO said the firm wants to “appropriately grow and train” its existing staff to trade yen rates successfully, without having to add new staff.