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Investment Strategy for BIG ADVANCE GLOBAL

• Management changed the original 3-year 500 million yen investment plan to a front-loaded aggressive investment concentrated in the current fiscal year, after winning the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Global South subsidy. Two-thirds of the total investment will be covered by the subsidy, which will be recorded as non-operating income in the final month of FY2026.
• Launch preparations in Thailand took longer than initially expected, but full operation is on track to start in Q4 FY2026. Over 20 domestic financial institutions have already committed to join the platform.

New Service Expansion for Financial Institutions

• BM Portal (a business matching management tool for financial institutions) launched this year, and has been adopted by Okinawa Bank. The service improves financial institutions' operational efficiency and supports their digital transformation.
• SAF (a generative AI-powered internal FAQ chatbot trained on each financial institution's internal rules) launched this year, and has been adopted by Suwa Shinkin Bank and Matsumoto Shinkin Bank, with growing adoption momentum.
• File sharing services GrpMail and WebFile from group company Key Point Inc. have been expanded to financial institutions, with adoption at Tokushima Taisho Bank and strong incoming inquiry volume.

Big Advance Platform Product Development

• Management is advancing the AI Agent initiative, which integrates generative AI to autonomously support SME owner operations. New features launched in 2025 include automatic business matching request text generation (July) and interactive AI-powered matching search (October). Future development will enable fully autonomous matching outreach, website improvement suggestions, and subsidy discovery.
• The 4th Enmusu BA hybrid matching event was held, with over 1,000 business negotiations total. A pilot cross-border matching event with Thai SMEs (partnered with Thailand's OSMEP) completed 64 negotiations and received positive feedback, demonstrating strong cross-border matching potential.
• Big Advance currently has 14,000 enterprises using its no-code website building feature, and expanded its Fukuri employee coupon offering via a partnership with Relo Club in April 2025. Business matching volume has returned to growth after UI/UX improvements, as online business negotiations have become fully entrenched post-pandemic.

Marketing Initiatives

• The company launched its first celebrity-branded marketing campaign, featuring talent Wang Lin, with regional TV CM starting October 2025, alongside updated landing pages and promotional materials to boost brand awareness and reverse the recent member decline trend.

• Full-year FY2026 guidance is maintained at: 2.01 billion yen sales, negative 100 million yen EBITDA, negative 450 million yen operating loss, and negative 50 million yen ordinary profit, after including expected 400 million yen in subsidy non-operating income.
• BIG ADVANCE GLOBAL will first launch full operations in Thailand in Q4 FY2026, followed by sequential expansion to other ASEAN markets (Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines) targeting the 70 million SMEs across the ASEAN region.
• The company maintains its mid-term target of 4.0 billion yen in total revenue with 20% operating margin (800 million yen operating profit), and will pursue this target via BIG ADVANCE GLOBAL expansion and considering M&A opportunities.
• The company targets to reverse the current Big Advance member decline trend and return to member growth by the end of FY2026, supported by new marketing initiatives.

1. Big Advance Business: Core中小企業向け経営支援プラットフォーム, revenue performed steadily in the quarter. It currently has approximately 60,000 member enterprises across Japan, and is used by around 80 financial institutions. Excluding BIG ADVANCE GLOBAL investment, the segment's core business maintains profitability.
2. DX Solutions Business: Revenue decreased year-over-year, because the large subsidy revenue booked in the prior year did not recur in the current quarter. This segment includes new financial institution-focused services (BM Portal, SAF) and existing file sharing services (GrpMail, WebFile), which are currently expanding adoption among financial institutions. Overall consolidated results: Q2 2026 consolidated sales were 866 million yen, down 17.7% year-over-year. Consolidated EBITDA was negative 13 million yen, operating loss was 148 million yen. Excluding BIG ADVANCE GLOBAL investment, EBITDA was 104 million yen profit, operating profit was 4 million yen profit.

• BIG ADVANCE GLOBAL Thailand launch preparations took longer than initially expected, creating delayed revenue generation from the new global initiative.
• Big Advance member count is currently in a declining trend, and the success of new marketing initiatives to reverse this trend is still unproven as of the second quarter.
• External environment changes including Trump-era tariffs and yen depreciation have impacted the global expansion planning, requiring adjustments to the original investment timeline.
• Churn rate for the platform increased slightly in Q2, and improvement efforts to lower churn are still ongoing.

No question and answer section was included in the provided earnings call transcript.