Leafea Partners with The Chugoku Bank to Provide New Value for Regional Financial Institutions Starting from the Workplace

Leafea Inc. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Wataru Morita; hereinafter "Leafea"), a provider of community-based welfare services, has begun a partnership with The Chugoku Bank (Head Office: Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture; President: Sadatoshi Kato).

This partnership aims to strengthen The Chugoku Bank's customer touchpoints in the region by starting from the "workplace" and delivering financial services more conveniently.

To achieve this, The Chugoku Bank will adopt Leafea's welfare app "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin" as a foundation and launch new features that can be linked with Chugoku Bank accounts.

Partnership Objective: Providing New Value for Regional Financial Institutions Starting from the Workplace

The Chugoku Bank aims to strengthen its touchpoints with people working in the region from their "workplace" and deliver financial services more conveniently. To achieve this, it will utilize Leafea's welfare service "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin."

The background to this initiative is that with labor shortages and rising labor costs, improving employee retention and satisfaction has become a critical management issue for companies. Enhancing employee benefits, sometimes referred to as the "third wage increase," is one of the important themes for businesses. "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin" supports improving employee motivation and engagement through features such as providing gifts to employees and offering coupons for families via the app.

Through this partnership, the service will be offered to The Chugoku Bank's client companies, supporting people working in the region and aiming to revitalize the local economy.

Furthermore, this partnership positions the welfare app "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin" as a new touchpoint for The Chugoku Bank to deliver financial services to its regional customers (workplace = touchpoint with the working environment). As a first step, a new feature linking "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin" with Chugoku Bank accounts has been jointly developed.

The Chugoku Bank has three main aspirations for this initiative:

Giving back to those working in the region: To reliably deliver the value of a regional financial institution to each individual supporting the regional economy.

Smooth delivery of financial services to the workplace: To efficiently deliver diverse financial services, including preferential interest rates, through the employees' familiar "workplace."

Smooth future integration with the bank's app: To aim for an experience that naturally connects to the bank's app in the future, using "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin" as an entry point.

Traditionally, there has been a structural challenge where preferential interest rate systems of regional financial institutions required procedures via phone or in-person visits to branches, and despite their benefits, they were not fully utilized by customers. This account linkage aims to resolve such issues starting from the "workplace" and serves as the first step in strengthening the connection between working individuals and regional financial institutions.

About "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin"

"Thanks Fukuri for Chugin," a welfare service provided by Leafea, allows companies to bear a monthly fee, enabling employees to use discount benefits at over 100,000 partner stores nationwide. Additionally, companies can send "gifts with messages" (*) to their employees as a token of appreciation or encouragement, designed to foster a sense of connection in daily life.

In addition to discounts at convenience stores, the service also offers an all-in-one stress check function, which is expected to become mandatory for companies with fewer than 50 employees in the future, realizing comprehensive welfare that includes the mental and physical care of employees.

(*) These can be exchanged for tickets usable at partner stores.

Details of Account Linkage Function

[Employees of companies adopting "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin"]

Link Chugoku Bank accounts by entering account numbers during the initial login.

After linkage is complete, identity verification can be completed online, paving the way for future online applications for preferential interest rates, housing loans, etc.

Future Outlook

Moving forward, Leafea plans to expand the functions of "Thanks Fukuri for Chugin" and develop it into a system that can deliver preferential interest rate offers to users with specific attributes through integration with group distribution functions.

Through this partnership, Leafea aims to build a model where welfare services serve as a new customer touchpoint for regional financial institutions, and by expanding the adoption of this service to client companies of regional financial institutions, contribute to the revitalization of the regional economy.

Outline of The Chugoku Bank

Name: The Chugoku Bank, Ltd.

Head Office Location: 1-15-20 Marunouchi, Kita-ku, Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture

Official Website: https://www.chugin.co.jp/

Outline of Leafea Inc.

Name: Leafea Inc.

Head Office Location: THE GATE Kayabacho 3F, 1-10-3 Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Official Website: https://leafea.co.jp