TOKYO — Japan will tighten regulations to prevent technology giants including Facebook Inc. and Google from abusing their market power and having unfair advantage over small businesses, officials said on Tuesday.

The new law would oblige tech giants, including Google LLC, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to disclose the terms of contracts with customers and to report to the government about their operations, they said.

Japan’s move followed the global trend — from the United States to Europe and Australia — of tightening the regulatory screws on the online platforms, which have policy makers scrambling to address concerns ranging from anti-trust issues to the spread of “fake news” and hate speech.

Google and Facebook have opposed tighter regulation, while traditional media owners, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., have backed reform.

“We want to put the new law into effect in the way that would make business transactions become transparent without imposing excessive burdens or hampering innovation,” Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters.

“The new law constitutes a framework for ‘platformers’ to make autonomous efforts to maintain transparency and fairness.”

For protection of personal data, the government will revise the personal information protection law to allow individuals to request digital firms to suspend the use of their data. The law currently regulates the handling of data collected by illicit means.

With regard to the anti-monopoly law, the Fair Trade Commission will revise guidelines to respond to the digital market by evaluating the value of data when inspecting a tie-up of corporations.

The trade watchdog will clarify that unfair acquisition and use of consumers’ personal information by platform companies could correspond to abusing their position. — Reuters

SAO PAULO — Banking apps backed by SoftBank Group Corp., China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. and others are proliferating in Brazil, offering such a dizzying array of choices that skeptics say a shakeout looks increasingly inevitable.

Customers can shop, open no-fee checking accounts and take out loans using digital wallets from retailers like Lojas Americanas, e-commerce platform Mercadolibre Inc. and even small football team Avai.

Brazil already has 50 million digital wallet accounts offered by more than 100 companies, according to some estimates.

These apps challenge the dominance of an initial wave of online banks like SoftBank-backed Banco Inter SA and Tencent-backed Nubank as they seek to grab a piece of Brazil’s 9.4 trillion real ($2.24 trillion) of banking assets.

The wave of startups are partly the fruit of central bank regulatory changes aimed at boosting competition in a banking sector in which five leaders hold 82% of total assets. The jolt of fresh competition may also help bring financial services to the nearly one-third of Brazilians with no bank accounts.

The changes threaten the hefty profits of brick and mortar banks like Itau Unibanco Holding SA and Spain’s Santander. But the plethora of new entrants could also make profits elusive for the more specialized fintechs, potentially forcing some to merge and others to give up.

On Friday yet another Brazilian retailer, Magazine Luiza, said it planned to launch an app-based wallet in January, partnering with state-run lender Banco do Brasil SA for cash withdrawals. This followed an announcement by cellular operator TIM Participacoes SA that it plans to launch a similar range of services in the first half.

“Few have a convincing reply to the question of how they’re going to make the business profitable,” said Raul Moreira, director of technology at Banco Original, one of the more established online banks, referring to the newer payment apps.

Nonbank businesses tend to offer more complex products like loans in partnership with traditional lenders.

The surge in payment accounts from nonbanks challenge online banks to learn risk management from scratch, said Luis Ruivo, head of financial services at PwC’s Brazil unit.

While retailers’ financial arms can juice up revenues, their priority is client loyalty and they are under less pressure to turn a profit than digital lenders like Nubank, Banco Original and Banco Inter, he said.

“The online banks were created to challenge the big banks but they are already being challenged by various other players,” Ruivo said.

Banco Inter is an exception among digital lenders, as it has been profitable and has a full-banking license with checking accounts, subject to capital requirement rules.

“Many newcomers are growing rapidly because consumers do not get the difference between digital wallets and checking accounts,” said Banco Inter Chief Executive Joao Vitor Menin. “Soon we’re going to see a lot of people doing silly things.”

Even small soccer team Avai, which was kicked off Brazil’s first division last month after a weak season, recently launched its own banking unit to offer financial services to its estimated 500,000 fans. — Reuters

SOFTBANK Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son has a solution to Japan’s decades-long economic malaise. Not surprisingly, it involves artificial intelligence (AI).

Japan can boost growth by joining with India and Southeast Asian countries in creating a common AI platform, Son told scientists and government bureaucrats who gathered in Tokyo on Tuesday for the government’s Moonshot symposium. He envisions Japan taking a leading role and believes the combined populations and markets could give the countries a fighting chance against the behemoths of China and the US, which share the lead in AI, he said.

“This is the moonshot,” Son said, drawing laughter with a slide that showed a graph of Japanese gross domestic product climbing steeply to exceed those of China and the US “If we can achieve this, the result will be amazing.”

As the first country to confront intractable problems of an aging society, Japan should focus on autonomous driving and DNA-centric medicine as solutions to rising traffic accidents involving the elderly and soaring medical costs, Son said. Southeast Asian countries should join Japan in creating a shared data bank and developing an “AI engine,” he said. Son didn’t explain what he meant by that nor say why developing countries would want to help the wealthy neighbor with its first-world problems.

“If we create Asia’s number one platform, that is a big potential,” Son said.

While many venture capitalists view Son’s sermons about the coming AI age as nothing more than marketing, the billionaire is already pushing his own companies to prepare for the future where every industry is redefined by the technology. Last month, SoftBank announced plans to combine its Yahoo Japan internet business with Line Corp., Japan’s biggest messaging service. The complex deal on his home turf is supposed to create a national champion that can more effectively compete with global rivals like Google and Amazon.com Inc.

Son is as bullish as ever on AI even as his investment strategy has come under fire. SoftBank’s Vision Fund had to write down the value of its ride-hailing portfolio, which includes China’s Didi Chuxing Inc., India’s Ola and Singapore’s Grab Holdings Ltd. after Uber Technologies Inc. fell more than 30% following its listing in May. Son also lost billions of dollars after pouring money into WeWork, a company that has no discernible AI technology but plenty of hurdles as it tries to turn a profit.

The hype around self-driving cars has died down recently after a number of deadly crashes in cars on AI autopilot made it clear that true autonomy may be many years away. Still, Son said robotaxis can already do better than senior citizens. He played a video of an autonomous vehicle from Cruise, a General Motors Co. self-driving unit where SoftBank has invested $2.25 billion, navigating San Francisco’s crowded streets.

“If you are still doubting the capability of autonomous driving, this is already today,” he said.

Son said the answer to rising medical costs is more DNA analysis, putting a spotlight on one of his portfolio companies, Guardant Health Inc. Shares of the cancer-detection company, one of the Vision Fund’s more profitable holdings, have climbed about fourfold since its stock market debut last year. Son also mentioned Karius Inc., a blood-testing startup in which SoftBank has no reported stake.

Shifting gears, Son said AI should be a subject on college entrance exams in Japan. Earlier this month, he announced a collaboration with the University of Tokyo in opening the Beyond AI Institute, designed to accelerate the transition of AI research from the theoretical to the applied. SoftBank in May named renowned AI expert and Deepcore adviser Yutaka Matsuo to its board, enlisting a specialist in the field for the first time. Matsuo is the president of the Japan Deep Learning Association, which offers certification exams for AI engineers.

“Japan has lost the past,” Son said, and if it doesn’t act swiftly to embrace and capitalize on AI, it “may be losing the future.” — Bloomberg