By Kazuma Nagahara / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Mizuho Bank Ltd. announced Tuesday that it will acquire Upsider Holdings Inc., a Tokyo-based company with expertise in assessing solvency using artificial intelligence. The newly bought company will become a subsidiary.

Mizuho Bank intends to create a model for evaluating firms' creditworthiness by leveraging both its own and the new subsidiary's strengths. It will use this model to support financing for middle-market firms as well as small and midsize enterprises.

The bank will acquire from investment funds and others about 70% of Upsider's shares for around 46 billion yen. All relevant shares are expected to be transferred around September.

Upsider was founded in 2018 and its services include issuing credit cards for corporate customers. There are more than 80,000 companies using the company's services. The corporate data that Upsider has gathered is paired with AI to assess firms' ability to make payments.

In the past, when bank employees assessed loans, they needed time to review financial documents and carry out other procedures. AI is said to cut down the time needed to decide on loans to about 10 business days, and to make it easier to assess a company's growth potential.

"(AI-based assessments) will make a significant difference in terms of speed and volume. We aim to make procuring funds easier for small and midsize firms, which are the backbone of Japan," said Mizuho Bank President Masahiro Kihara at a press conference on Tuesday.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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July 31, 2025 00:21 ET (04:21 GMT)

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