Finance

Kobayashi Shinichiro from Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting thinks Japan's economy is still not doing well. People are trying to spend less money because prices are going up.

Kobayashi says, "For the economy to get better, people need to spend more money. For that to happen, companies need to pay their workers more. The results of the wage talks will decide a lot about how the economy will be in the future."

These talks ended recently. Before the talks, Kobayashi also said if companies pay more, prices might increase, causing more inflation. This could then change how the central bank manages money.

The idea of universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining steam around the world. A Japanese billionaire and an American presidential candidate, among others, have both thrown their weight behind it.

The concept is simple: the government provides unconditional money to their citizens. The theory is that in order to provide basic services for all citizens and to stimulate the economy, a small amount of money can be given to each person, equally. 

In the United States, presidential candidate Andrew Yang has even given away $12,000 to a random Twitter follower. In his plan, each adult would receive that amount of money every year. Yang argues people will continue working, even with UBI. $12,000 a year is barely enough to live on in many places and certainly not enough to afford much in the way of experiences or advancement. To get ahead meaningfully, people will still need to get out there and work.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group plans to establish an organization to look into the use of artificial intelligence in loan application screenings and market trend predictions.

The new entity will be called MUFG AI Studio. MUFG aims to develop new financial services and improve operational effectiveness by proactively adopting AI in the financial sector. They will use AI to screen loan applications through analyzing the risk of bankruptcy and other factors because AI is capable of understanding corporate earnings and financial flows. The AI is also expected to read worldwide news reports and forecast changes in stock and bond prices.

Under the initiative, MUFG is also considering using AI in other areas, including to collect expertise from people who have performed well in trading bonds and to find new loan borrowers. MUFG would then use that expertise to train its employees.

GMO Internet, which operates a range of web-related businesses including finance, online advertising and internet infrastructure, will start paying up to 100,000 yen (£660/$890) monthly by Bitcoin to its employees in Japan from February this year.

“Employees can receive salaries by Bitcoin if they want to,” company spokeswoman Harumi Ishii said. “We hope to improve our own literacy of virtual currency by actually using it.”

The offer will be open to around 4,000 employees of the GMO group in Japan, she said.

The footballer Neymar has dismissed suggestions his world-record £198m move to Paris Saint-Germain was motivated by money and instead insisted he moved to the French capital for “a new challenge”.

“I wanted something bigger, a bigger challenge. This was about ambition,” Neymar said. “I was never motivated by money. I thought about the happiness of my family, regardless of money.”

Nasser al-Khelaifi, the PSG owner, said “For me Neymar is the best player in the world. With him our project will grow even stronger. Let’s enjoy Neymar.”

The transfer has not been well received by everyone, however. The international players’ association released a statement demanding an investigation into “anti-competitive, unjustified and illegal” Fifa transfer rules.