Public attention is being drawn to the aggressive marketing strategies of Uniqlo and Carrefour. Fast Retailing Co., which runs the Uniqlo clothing chain, and French retail giant Carrefour both seek to obtain a major slice of the retail market by bypassing wholesalers and middlemen. Their strategy of supplying goods directly from the producers to the consumers is adding to the downward pressure on prices.

But these radical changes are not limited to the retail industry. The lifting of restrictions on commission charges and other deregulatory measures have prompted the securities industry to also undergo significant change.

Major brokerage companies have long played dominant roles in securities dealings, serving as both underwriters and sellers of new stock and bond issues.

This dual role has, accordingly, often left them in conflicts of interest between bond- and stock-issuing corporations and would-be buyers of new stocks and bonds.

Now that a rash of Internet brokers has joined them, however, significant price-setting changes are under way.

When the online brokerage firm Monex Inc., for example, made its debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market for startup firms last summer, DLJdirect SFG Securities Inc. and Matsui Securities Co. played important roles in determining what the initial public offering price for its new shares would be.

Although this development may have seemed insignificant, it actually offered fresh evidence that major brokerages are facing a formidable challenge from their minor rivals, notably online brokerages that are uninvolved in underwriting new stock issues and thus free of conflicts of interest that plague issuers and investors.

Conflicts of interest often lead to irrational arbitration between sellers and buyers. Would-be buyers naturally shun such an unnatural pricing scheme.

As in retailing, the securities industry is beginning to see once-unthinkable changes in pricing formulas unfold in the marketplace. The changes may hurt some brokers, but there is no doubt that they will be beneficial to the investors.