Financial giants Nomura Securities Co. and the Industrial Bank of Japan announced Wednesday that they are to forge links in the areas of personal asset management and financial derivatives to prepare for increased competition in a more deregulated market.
The move would come by the end of the year at the earliest.
The firms will jointly set up two companies; one to develop financial derivative products and the other to manage assets such as the 401K plan, a type of corporate retirement plan popular in the United States and likely to be introduced here in the future.