NTT and online financial group SBI Holdings said Thursday that they plan to forge a business and capital tie-up.

NTT will acquire new SBI Holdings shares to be issued in a third-party allotment program, it said in a statement.

Through the alliance, the two sides hope to work together to merge the two worlds of telecommunications and finance.

As part of the tie-up, mobile phone carrier NTT Docomo, an NTT subsidiary, will make SBI Holdings' online lending arm, SBI Sumishin Net Bank, a consolidated subsidiary.

NTT Docomo hopes to take around two-thirds of SBI Sumishin's shares through a tender offer, in order to enter the banking industry, company sources said earlier.

SBI Holdings plans to sell its 34% equity stake in SBI Sumishin to NTT Docomo, while Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, which also has a 34% stake, hopes to remain a shareholder, the sources said.

With the mobile phone industry hit by a decrease in income from telecommunications fees, NTT Docomo's three major rivals are using their banking units to expand their reward point-centered economic blocs.

NTT Docomo, which had fallen behind the rivals, has been considering its next move. President Yoshiaki Maeda, who took the helm of the company in June last year, has said an entry into the banking business was a necessary step to expand its business.

In other segments of the financial sector, NTT Docomo brought under its wing online brokerage house Monex in January 2024 and personal loan provider Orix Credit, currently Docomo Finance, in March of that year.