If the environment were to become one that enables as many companies as possible to take on the challenge of a range of initiatives and business to meet the needs of society, this would increase the vibrancy of society itself. With the aim of such an environment, I believe we should work toward a world where there are many different ways for companies to obtain funding and use this for purposes such as purchasing the raw materials, building the factories, and employing the human resources to enable them to take on challenges.

eGuarantee extends credit to companies not only on the basis of quantitative and static information such as collateral, account statements, and company size, but also qualitative and dynamic assessments using so-called big data accumulated by gathering large volumes of information including details of business-to-business transactions, technological capabilities, brand power, and payment records. I think an approach that differs from the conventional method of assessment is something that will enable new potential to be discovered in companies that have previously found it difficult to obtain credit.

The simplest example of the extending of credit that eGuarantee performs is providing a finance guarantee to a financial institution, while the main area of business that we are involved in is the provision of guarantees for business-to-business credit where a payment to a supplier is deferred by several months. Companies use funds that they borrow to make payments to suppliers and for other such purposes, and when the payment to the supplier is to be made at a later date, the effect is the same as borrowing the funds for the relevant period. Our fields of business are loans and other forms of indirect financing as well as business-to-business credit for deferred settlements in business-to-business transactions, and we believe that in future, corporate bonds and other forms of direct financing can be a field in which we do business. This is how broad-based the market is.

In these fields, employing an underwriting method where risk that cannot be taken on by a single company is distributed to many institutional investors using funds and the like enables risk larger than a major financial institution can underwrite to be underwritten at low cost. By extension, this enables the underwriting of large amounts of risk for SMEs and other such entities considered to be high risk.
Leveraging these special features of ours has led to eGuarantee services being used by a broad range of clients, and this has enabled us to achieve an increase in income and profit for 20 consecutive years since our establishment. And in 2023, we have passed the one trillion yen mark in our guarantee obligations, which is the balance of the risk that we underwrite.
With the aim of becoming a company that plays a role as part of the economic infrastructure in business-to-business transactions, our executives and employees will together do their utmost in the company's business, and we look forward to your continued support and cooperation going forward.

President and CEO Masanori Eto