is a Japanese multinational banking financial services institution owned by the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, which is also known as the SMBC Group. It is headquartered in the same building as SMBC Group in

Marunouchi Marunouchi () is an area in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, located between Tokyo Station and the Kokyo, Imperial Palace. The name, meaning "inside the circle", derives from its location within the palace's outer moat. Marunouchi is the core ...

Chiyoda, Tokyo , known as Chiyoda City in English,
." ''City of Chiyoda''. Retrieved on December 28, 2008. is a S ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. SMBC was established in 2001 through the merger of The Sakura Bank, which originated from the

Mitsui is a Japanese corporate group and '' keiretsu'' that traces its roots to the ''zaibatsu'' groups that were dissolved after World War II. Unlike the ''zaibatsu'' of the pre-war period, there is no controlling company with regulatory power. Ins ...

zaibatsu is a Japanese language, Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertical integration, vertically integrated business conglomerate (company), conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over signifi ...

and was founded as

Mitsui Bank was a major Japanese bank from 1876 to 1990. The home bank of the Mitsui conglomerate, it was one of the largest Japanese banks for much of the 20th century, together with Dai-Ichi Bank, Mitsubishi Bank, Sumitomo Bank, and Yasuda / Fuji Bank. I ...

in 1876, and The Sumitomo Bank, which originated from the Sumitomo zaibatsu and was founded in 1895.

Digital banking

IC cash card

An IC cash card is a single cash card that can be used with three method of identification: biometric authentication, IC chip or magnetic stripe, by setting the limit and registering biometric information (finger vein pattern). With this cash card, the security of usage improved since transactions relies on IC chip recording data and the pattern of past transactions that combined IC chip recording data and biometric authentication. As of 2017, SMBC issued IC cash cards at the bank's counters (only applicable to ordinary design deposit cash cards; cards of other designs and non-savings accounts are not eligible for immediate issuance).

Artificial Intelligence

SMBC has been an early adopter of AI in its banking operation. It is the first Japanese bank to use

IBM Watson IBM Watson is a computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language. It was developed as a part of IBM's DeepQA project by a research team, led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's fou ...

since 2014 to support operators at its call center. AmiVoice, a voice recognition solution provided by SMBC, transforms inquiries into text on a real-time basis as a speech recognition system, while IBM Watson gives customers responses taken from service manuals and Q&As, thereby allowing digital operators to provide timely and correct answers to callers.

SMBC branch in Tokyo Disneyland

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation is the only bank that has a branch office in

Tokyo Disneyland is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney park t ...

and

Tokyo DisneySea is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, just next to Tokyo. It opened on 4 September 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen. The Oriental Land Company owns the park, and licenses intellectual prope ...

. The branch is the legacy of

, which was a member of the Mitsui Group when Oriental Land was established. Tokyo Disney Resort project was done by

Mitsui Fudosan is a major Japanese real estate developer with properties located globally. Mitsui Fudosan is one of the core companies of Mitsui Group. Corporate structure The company is organized into four divisions. *Office Building Division *Real Estate ...

. The branch office in Tokyo DisneySea has an unmanned ATM section called "

Nihonbashi is a business district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan, which sprung up around the bridge of the same name that has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603. The curre ...

Branch Tokyo DisneySea Branch", but staff are still assigned to the "

Urayasu 260px, Old Urayasu is a city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 170,533 in 81,136 households and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Urayasu is best known as the home of Tokyo Dis ...

Branch Tokyo Disneyland Branch" (store number 593) in Tokyo Disneyland. The operating hours follow normal bank operational time. It was possible to open an account and no limitation of total handled customers, but now it is limited only to

citizens and related parties. The passbook design and the card design are not different from the one issued by ordinary SMBC's branches and cannot be visually differentiated. Previously, the Disneyland branch office also handled foreign currency exchange. Note, SMBC is not a participating company nor official sponsor of Tokyo Disney Resort. For instance, Disney characters have been used by the Bank of Mitsubishi UFJ as an image character for over half a century since it was adopted by

Mitsubishi Bank The was a major Japanese bank headquartered in Tokyo, founded in 1880. For much of the 20th century it was one of the largest Japanese banks, together with Dai-Ichi Bank, Mitsui Bank, Sumitomo Bank, and Yasuda / Fuji Bank. It served as the ma ...

in 1962.

References

External links