Orders effective Aug. 6, 2026 temporarily relax donation-transfer identity checks and certain borrowing procedures to help quake victims and related relief activity.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency on Aug. 6, 2026 promulgated and enforced separate emergency rule changes after the 2026 Kumamoto earthquake, easing both anti-money-laundering identity checks for some disaster donations and procedural requirements for certain loans. For donations, cash remittances of 2 million yen or less are excluded from transaction-time identity checks when the destination account was opened solely to receive earthquake donations, and affected customers who cannot complete standard identity verification may temporarily use self-declaration until normal checks can be completed. Separately, the FSA amended the Cabinet Office Ordinance under the Money Lending Business Act to make borrowing procedures more flexible in four areas, including urgent-expense loans exempt from Japan’s total lending cap, certain sole-proprietor borrowing, some credit-limit cash advances, and cases using combined spousal income under an exemption. The FSA said the lending ordinance was adopted without a public comment process under an emergency public-interest provision of the Administrative Procedure Act.