Newsletter Signup
Join Our Community!
Stay updated with the latest news, exclusive insights, and more.
Stay updated with the latest news, exclusive insights, and more.
To see how we may use your information, take a look at our privacy policy.
.png)
Foreign-owned Japanese startup GIG-A won the 2021 Tokyo Financial Award for Financial Innovation, and went on to win many other business competitions with their vision for a more modern, online banking service in Japan.
We interviewed founder Raul Allikivi about his company, his experiences, and the hard-won practical lessons he learned while starting a business in Japan.
.png)
I'm Raul from Estonia, and I've been in Japan for a very long time actually.
My connection to Japan dates back to 2001, when I arrived as an exchange student at Waseda University. I really had a great year, so I came back soon after to do my masters in Japan.
After that, I returned to Estonia to work for the government. I wanted Estonia to do more things with Japan and other Asian countries, so I wrote a plan for the country on how to engage more with Asia in 2012. However, I saw nobody was really doing much so I thought I needed to take matters into my own hands.
In 2013, I quit my government job, made a company and came back to Japan, and for the last 12 years I've been doing business between Estonia and Japan. I've been helping Estonian companies to get into the Japanese market, I was importing Japanese craft beer to European markets, and I was also part of a cyber security startup where we took Estonian E-government technology and brought it to Japan for large Japanese corporations.
.png)
GIG-A is a subscription-based fintech service that helps foreign residents in Japan open bank accounts and make domestic transfers through a multilingual app.
In Estonia, we already had quite good financial services and it was quite digital. Then I came to Japan, and what I got was a paper bank book. I was surprised; I thought Japan was developed! I felt Japanese financial services are a little bit behind. Additionally, it's almost impossible to get a loan as a foreigner. It's also very hard to get a credit card. So it's not only about daily banking but any other kind of services that require trust are difficult. Nowadays you don't really have to become a bank to solve it. So as a fintech company, we can use technology to collaborate with existing banks, but also offer other kinds of new solutions.
I think we are living in a really interesting time—in a sense that there is kind of a large shift in what's possible. Banking is one of the industries that is still back in the 1980s.
.png)
I want Japan to be a country where anyone can come and work. Today, it's really hard and complicated to get daily essentials, like getting a bank account and understanding what kind of paper mail is coming to you from the city office.
I want it to be easy. People can just download the GIG-A app, get a bank account, get a phone contract from the app, and be able to use whatever daily services in their own language.
It's not only a problem in Japan. Many other countries in Asia are also aging and there is a need for more foreigners to come work. More people will be living in other countries in the coming years to work. My vision is that I want my company to not only be in the Japanese market, but also make it possible for migrants to build trust across borders–mostly in Asia to start, but maybe globally.
In the United States, I think more people are more used to that because it's more normal. However, I think in Asian countries it's a relatively new thing, so that's why it's more challenging here.
.png)
If you don't know Japan, it might feel very difficult to do something [here]. But actually my opinion is that it's not true. Of course, there are many challenges, but overall, especially in the last 5~10 years, Japan has become much more open towards foreign entrepreneurs. In our case four years ago, when I was getting started with GIG-A, we had nothing. We just had the idea. We participated in the Tokyo Financial Award Program, where The Tokyo City government invites local and foreign fintechs to come up with services and projects that could make life of people living in Tokyo better. We ended up winning the competition. This was pre-product, pre-money, pre-everything. The second place went to a Japanese company that has already IPOed today, and the third place was a British unicorn in the insurance business. In this sense, I felt that we were very welcomed.
However, if you come to Japan not understanding a language, not understanding the context, yes, it might feel complicated. I think language is a kind of mental block. I was talking with an Estonian entrepreneur to try to help them in Japan, and this guy was saying “Japan looks interesting, but I cannot understand it.” For him, every decision as a startup was a resource bet—he had to choose where he could realistically win. Unfortunately, he doesn't understand the ecosystem in Japan so he chose something that he understands and he can be more confident to succeed in.
But at the same time, Japan is a large country where there are educated, intelligent people. The Japanese people probably don't realize it that much, but Japan has very strong soft power. Globally, there are many people who are interested in Japanese culture, such as manga, anime, samurai, or, in my case, ninjas. People have very different reasons, but in almost any country, many are interested in Japan. Those who come often feel something that draws them back. Many people I studied with ended up living in Japan for a while. Once you build a connection, it tends to last—and I believe Japan has a kind of magic.
It's still a large economy. It's been stagnant, but there are some dynamics. I see that Japan has some things that have happened in other countries that have not yet happened here. And in a way that's an opportunity. People from abroad know how it can be done.
.png)
When I started my business, my reference point was Estonia, where everything is digital. Last year, they digitized the final government service—getting divorced. You can now get married or divorced online, and starting a company takes less than 10 minutes.
In Japan, things are more complicated. For example, to file taxes online, I need a Windows computer, even though I use a Mac. The forms are long, often hard to fill out, and my name doesn’t fit properly because it’s not in kanji. In Estonia, I can outsource admin tasks and spend just a few hours a month doing that. In Japan, even small companies often need someone full-time for that. There’s still a lot of room for improvement.
.png)
I think there are many things that people need to understand about Japanese business culture. But I think the most important thing is that, first, you need to understand if Japan is right for your business or not. So your initial goal shouldn’t be, “Okay, I want to launch a business or start a big operation in Japan.” You should come here, look around, try to understand what's going on, and figure out if Japan is for you.
And if you think it is, then you have to commit. You can't do Japan part-time, basically. And committing means coming here, becoming part of the local ecosystem, and meeting people, meeting with partner companies. Then you discover, “Oh, okay, actually this ecosystem really works.” There are many people supporting you.
Japanese companies—they might be traditional and maybe still a bit difficult to deal with—but they’re kind of open. They’re looking for new solutions and ideas. And as a foreigner, if you can be respectful and really understand your partners and counterparts, then they want to understand what you're saying. Your perspective is valued.
So I think in this sense, Japan is actually quite open. But you have to commit to see that.
Even small changes take real effort, so since big things require big effort anyway, I’m choosing to focus on them. After all, if you’re going to invest energy, why not aim for something big?
.png)
.png)
.png)