Activity Report

Tokyo, February, 3rd, 2025 — Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Ltd. (President & Group CEO: Toru Nakajima, hereinafter collectively referred to as the "SMBC Group") has launched impact investing targeting startups through its subsidiary SMBC Venture Capital Co., Ltd. (President: Tomofumi Saeki, hereinafter referred to as "SMBCVC") since April last year. Impact investing is investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.

We are pleased to announce that SMBCVC implemented the first impact investment in HAKKI AFRICA Co., Ltd. (CEO: Ryoji Kobayashi, hereinafter referred to as "HAKKI AFRICA"), which is engaged in a microfinance business for taxi drivers in Africa.

In emerging countries, including Africa, it is common for many taxi drivers to operate their taxi business with rental cars owned by wealthy people. The reason why behind this is that many people do not have access to formal financial services to purchase own cars due to low creditworthiness and lack of collateral. As a result, taxi drivers have no choice but to continue paying rental costs so that they are not able to build assets and to improve their income.

HAKKI AFRICA has built a credit scoring system with a unique algorithm to provide financing products for vehicle purchases with as little risk as possible. Through this investment, HAKKI AFRICA will be able to improve access to finance by increasing the number of drivers who can provide financing and contribute to the economic growth of emerging countries by improving their income and asset building.

This impact investing is implemented in Series C round in which SMBCVC is a co-lead investor. In impact investing, we track data such as changes in income to evaluate the impact on drivers.

SMBC Group has positioned "the creation of social value" as one of its key pillars in its midterm plan, and has set "poverty and disparity" as one of the priority issues (materiality) that the entire group should proactively address. We will continue to promote initiatives to solve poverty and disparity through co-creation with stakeholders.