The Japanese drive to dematerialise its stock market by January 2009 appears to be on course. The Japanese CSD JASDEC says that the proportion of stocks deposited in immobilized form at JASDEC was 75.4 % at the fiscal year end, up 4.7 % from a year earlier (71.7 %).
The JASDEC data suggests that banks, brokerage firms and overseas investors already immobilize 90 % of their shares at JASDEC, while private investors and corporates deposit only 40 % of their assets at JASDEC.
“The improvement in usage of individual investors and industrial corporations is considered to be a key factor for the smooth transition to complete dematerialization,” says a spokesman for Mizuho Corporate Bank in Tokyo.