LINE : Financial Corporation and Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc. Enter Into Business Alliance in Non-Life Insurance Field

● Smartphone-optimized insurance services combining 'communication' and 'InsurTech' to come

TOKYO - April 25, 2018 - LINE Financial Corporation ('LINE Financial') announces that it has entered into a business alliance with Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc. ('Sompo Japan') in the non-life insurance field in pursuit of its goal to create and provide innovative financial services.

Sompo Japan aims to provide its customers with best-in-class services that contribute to their safety, health, and peace of mind as it continues to launch a wide array of different insurance services. The company is enthusiastically launching innovative services that make use of digital technologies, as illustrated by its recent creation of SOMPO Digital Lab offices (with offices located in Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Israel), being the first Japanese insurance provider to develop a smartphone-based insurance telematics, and its utilization of AI and voice recognition technologies in its call centers.

In anticipation of a cashless and walletless society, LINE Financial is further reinforcing LINE Corporation's position in the financial business domain by moving forward with its preparations to provide users with various financial services through LINE, including virtual currency trading and an exchange, loans, and insurance. LINE Financial aims to close the distance between people and their money and services, in addition to creating and providing users with innovative, convenient, and secure financial services.

Through this business alliance, the companies will bring Sompo Japan's know-how as a non-life insurance provider, as well as its expertise in digital technologies, together with LINE Financial's vast user base in Japan of 73 million monthly active users on the LINE messaging app, its exceptional reach to the youth demographic, and design specifications focused on high usability. Sompo Japan and LINE Financial will make use of their respective strengths as they aim to create and provide a new type of smartphone-optimized insurance service that combines communication and InsurTech (Insurance + Technology) to allow users to quickly and easily make purchases, receive consultations, or request materials with their smartphone.

This will allow the companies to expand the market to demographics which had previously been uninterested in insurance, all the while closing the distance between people and insurance. In addition to this, LINE Financial and Sompo Japan also aim to bring about a game change in the insurance industry in the future by providing new types of insurance services unique to LINE.

The service will tentatively start in within 2018. Further announcements will be made as matters such as the details of the service are determined.

Comment from Takeshi Idezawa (Representative Director of LINE Financial Corporation):

I am greatly honored to have the opportunity to enter into this business alliance with Sompo Japan, a company which is known for its long history in Japan, its incredible reliability and trustworthiness, and high-quality insurance services. Further, we believe that our partnership with Sompo Japan - a company engaged in bringing about innovative services combining digital technologies and people - will be an opportunity for us to provide more accessible services to those user demographics that are hesitant to get started with non-life insurance, including the youth demographic, which has been traditionally uninterested in the subject. We believe that the insurance business will play a vital role in FinTech and LINE's smart portal strategy going forward. We will be working together to strive to make users' lives even more convenient and fulfilling through this service.

Comment from Keiji Nishizawa (Representative Director of Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc.):

We are overjoyed to be able to take on the challenge of creating a new business model together with LINE, a company that created a new form of customer experience through its sticker-based communication, and is also familiar to many users. By combining the unique insurance products developed by our group and our vast array of information together with the LINE platform, which has the most users in Japan, we believe that we can provide new, more accessible products to even more customers. We will continue to strive to create valuable products and services that support the safety, health, and peace of mind of our customers.

LINE Financial Corporation Overview

(1) Name: LINE Financial Corporation

(2) Location of Head Office: JR Shinjuku Miraina Tower 23F, 4-1-6 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

(3) Representative: Takeshi Idezawa, Representative Director

(4) Primary Business: Investment management, virtual currencies, loans, and other financial services.

(5) Capital: JPY 5 billion (as of December 31, 2017)

(6) Established: January 10, 2018

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc. Overview

(1) Name: Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc.

(2) Location of Head Office: 1-26-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

(3) Representative: Keiji Nishizawa, Representative Director

(4) Primary Business: Non-life insurance

(5) Capital: JPY 70 billion (as of April 1, 2017)

(6) Established: July 1887