GMO GlobalSign Holdings and Daiwa Securities
enter into partnership agreement for the utilization of the digital signing service GMO Sign
Supporting the promotion of digital transformation of Daiwa Securities’ customers

　GMO GlobalSign Holdings K.K. (President & CEO Mitsuru Aoyama; hereinafter, “GMO GlobalSign HD”), a member of the GMO Internet Group, the Daiwa Securities Group Inc. head office (CEO Seiji Nakata), and Daiwa Securities Co. Ltd. (President & CEO Seiji Nakata; hereinafter “Daiwa Securities”) have begun supporting the promotion of digital transformation (hereinafter, DX) of Daiwa Securities’ customers through GMO Sign, a digital signing service provided by GMO GlobalSign HD.

　Through the provision of GMO Sign, GMO GlobalSign HD and Daiwa Securities are backing a specific initiative toward the creation of a sustainable and affluent society where carbon neutrality is achieved by going paperless. At the same time, they are also promoting digital transformation across Japanese society as a whole.

【Background to provision】

　The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about rapid digitization and work style reforms, requiring Japanese enterprises to respond to this transformation. There are also increasing opportunities for promoting the SDGs, which aim to build a sustainable and affluent society, and it is becoming imperative that we support the creation of carbon neutral workplaces.

　On this occasion, the philosophy of backing the two reforms of DX and transforming Japanese companies into more sustainable organizations, as well as robustly promoting the advancement of DX across Japanese society as a whole, resonates with both GMO GlobalSign HD and Daiwa Securities. We have therefore reached an agreement to offer the GMO Sign service, provided by GMO GlobalSign HD, to Daiwa Securities’ customers, as a solution tool contributing to DX.

　Since April 2020, the GMO Internet Group has been carrying out activities toward achieving the SDGs^(*1) through its businesses, as well as working on alternatives to physical hanko seals and signatures. In particular, by providing the GMO Sign digital signing service to 250,000 businesses, the Group is advancing efforts toward achieving a more efficient and paperless society, thereby contributing to the achievement of two SDGs: Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.

　Meanwhile, the Daiwa Securities Group established the SDGs Promotion Committee in 2018 and incorporated the perspective of the SDGs in the foundation of its management strategies, while also endeavoring to provide products and services that contribute to the realization of a sustainable society. In May 2021, the Group established and publicly announced its management vision, Vision 2030. Vision 2030 takes “From savings to SDGs” as its core concept, and it is through this vision that the Group intends to achieve the SDGs by creating a sustainable capital cycle.

　GMO GlobalSign HD and Daiwa Securities are leveraging their combined expertise to jointly contribute to the sustainable development of companies, as well as Japanese society as a whole.

(*1): SDGs is an acronym of the Sustainable Development Goals, which were established by the United Nations. They comprise 17 goals and 169 targets that should be achieved through a partnership between all countries across the globe.

【About GMO Sign】

　GMO Sign is a comprehensive cloud-based digital signing service that deals with everything from signing contracts to document management. It has the largest corporate customer base of all domestic digital document signing services^(*2), with over 260,000 corporate customers as of August 2021. Even among digital signing services, it is one of the only services that supports hybrid signing, i.e., both business signatures (contract seals), which provide authentication based on email addresses or similar, and personal signatures (registered personal seals), which provide stringent personal authentication through a digital certification authority. 　The partial amendment^(*3) of regulations for enforcement of the Local Autonomy Act on January 29, 2021 (Fri.) has made it possible for local governments to use both business signatures and personal signatures provided by the GMO Sign service. In March 2021, the city of Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture (Mayor: Ryo Takizawa) made the decision to adopt and implement GMO Sign. ^(*4) 　Furthermore, in July 2021, GMO GlobalSign HD began providing the MyNumber Registered Seal service, the first of its kind in Japan^(*5), which enables stringent personal identification checks to be completed quickly and easily just by tapping an Individual Number (My Number) Card on a smartphone. GMO GlobalSign HD will continue working to enhance its service by increasing the ways in which GMO Sign can be used, both in the public and private sectors, as a digital signing service allowing convenient and speedy–yet reliable–personal identification checks in place of face-to-face person identification and contract signing using various paper certificates.

(*2)The number of companies that have introduced “GMO Sign,” which supports either the “party signature type” or the “witness type (business signature type)” as of December 31, 2020. One business operator (company or individual) is counted as one account. Duplicate accounts are excluded.
(*3)Kanpou (issued January 29, 2021)
URL: https: //kanpou.npb.go.jp/old/20210129/20210129h00422/20210129h004220005f.html
(*4)Sanjo City to become the first Japanese local authority to introduce the electronic contract service of GMO GlobalSign HD! (issued March 22, 2021)
URL: https: //www.gmogshd.com/news/press/gmo-hs/210322_3148.html
(*5) First cloud-based digital signing service in Japan that enables documents to be signed via an Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL) certificate issued by public certification authorities after personal authentication has been carried out using the Individual Number (My Number) Card (public identity verification).

About GMO GlobalSign Holdings K.K.

GMO GlobalSign Holdings K.K. (TSE: 3788) is a full-service IT infrastructure provider focused on cloud solutions. Established as a hosting company in 1996, the company has managed servers for more than 130,000 businesses and now has 6,700 sales partners throughout Japan. In February of 2011, the company launched GMO Cloud to enhance its focus on cloud-based solutions. Since 2007, the company has also grown its GlobalSign SSL security brand through offices in Belgium, U.K., U.S., China and Singapore. For more information please visit https://www.gshd.com/english/.