Mizuho Financial Group CEO Tatsufumi Sakai and three other senior exectives will resign after the bank has been reprimanded by the Japans’ banking regulator over technical system failures.

Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan issued a business improvement order on the bank in connection with the system glitches, highlighting its defect in governance and corporate culture.

In addition to Sakai, other executives in charge of the group’s systems and compliance will step down in April to take responsibility for the system outages and regulatory actions.

European digital wealth manager Moneyfarm has launched a new digital service to help advisers cater to the needs of smaller clients.

Supported by Moneyfarm’s investment team, the new offering is designed to provide low-cost advice and portfolio management to less affluent customers of banks, independent financial advisors and building societies.

It is said to comprise end-to-end service including onboarding, investor profiling as well as mapping to suitable portfolios. It includes access to Moneyfarm’s multi-asset portfolios as well as third-party portfolios as preferred by the clients.

The solution is expected to help advisers serve clients with smaller pots while maintaining their focus on large clients with complex needs.

Under the new service, Moneyfarm will take over the clients referred by advisers until they wish to re-engage with them.

Advisors will have access to dashboard featuring the client details and can decide when to re-engage with the client. Additionally, they will receive an alert via e-mail once the client assets reach a specific threshold.

Kingswood Holdings, the wealth and investment management group, has announced its acquisition of Metnor Holdings.

Metnor is based in Harrogate and is the holding company for IBOSS Asset management and Novus Financial Services.

IBOSS is a provider of managed portfolio services and other investment solutions.

Furthermore, in the 12 months to 31 October 2021, the IBOSS Group generated revenue of £3.3m ($4.4m) and EBITDA of £1.3m. The IBOSS Group currently employs 29 people and has over 6,000 clients with over £1.4bn of AuA/M. At 31 December 2020, the IBOSS Group had net assets of £3.1m.

UOB Asset Management (UOBAM) has listed the UOB Asia Pacific Green Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Exchange-Traded Fund, the world’s first.

The ETF enables individuals to invest in quality green REITs across Asia Pacific with dividend yields. It also attracted S$80m ($58.6m) in assets during the initial offering period.

Projected demand for office space across Asia Pacific is expected to grow 65% by 2030, according to Cushman Wakefield.

As a result, the UOB APAC Green REIT ETF aims to replicate the performance of the iEdge-UOB APAC Yield Focus Green REIT Index, which UOBAM created in partnership with Singapore Exchange (SGX) and GRESB.

Stratiphy has forged a partnership with WealthKernel, a wealthtech provider of digital investment services, to launch its investment app in the UK next year.

Stratiphy’s app enables users to make investment decisions by allowing them to compare different scenarios.

It also provides investors the option to select their own investment preferences and view historical performance.

Additionally, the app combines analytics and environmental, social, and governance ratings (ESG) to help users compare companies.

As part of the tie-up, Stratiphy will leverage WealthKernel’s investment infrastructure as well as and its Appointed Representative service.

The partnership will also see the firm tapping WealthKernel’s brokerage and custody services as well as its regulatory umbrella to support the UK rollout of its app.

It is expecting to launch in-app live trading in the country in the second quarter of next year, following a £440k crowdfunding campaign this September.