Michinobu Kishi has over three decades of experience in central banking, public policy and commercial banking. He is the General Manager of the Transaction Business Planning Department at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and has served as the Swift National Member Group Chairperson Japan since 2022. His responsibilities include the bank’s ISO 20022 migration, responding to G20/FSB cross border payments roadmaps, and conducting R&D on transaction banking. Since 2024, he serves as a Member of the Board of Directors, Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF).

Prior to joining SMBC, Mr. Kishi spent 31 years at the Bank of Japan building extensive experience with various parts of the central bank. While at the Payments and Settlement Systems Department (2018-20), Mr. Kishi headed the BoJ team for joint DLT study with the ECB (Project Stella), contributed to “Central bank digital currencies: foundational principles and core features” (G-7 central banks and BIS, 09 October 2020), and “Wholesale digital tokens” (Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, December 2019), as a member of relevant working groups. Earlier in his career, he had experience in BOJ-NET RTGS system development at Information System Services Department (1997-99). At Operations Department (2001-03), he was leading teams to formulate transaction rules and internal processing policies for new RTGS services. As Deputy Director-General of the Financial Stability and Bank Examination Department (2020–2022), he was a member of the G7 Cyber Expert Group and organised the Supervisory College and Crisis Management Group for large Japanese banks.