わたしのブログ

私は印鑑の廃止を規制緩和の一つとして断行してほしいと思っている。役所関係や銀行を始め多くの文書に捺印が必要である。しかも銀行などは同一の印鑑を要求される。常に印鑑を所持しなければならないし、失くすと大変面倒な手続きが必要となる。西洋では印鑑に代わりサインを行っている。これのほうが確かだし、理屈にあっている。現に外国人の銀行口座開設に付き合った時には、サインで済ますことができた。このインターネットの時代に印鑑は障害になっている。印鑑の廃止には業者の反対が強いと聞いたが、明らかに一部の業界の既得権を守るもので、是非規制緩和してほしい。


Easing of regulation in economy is one of the key issues for so-called the third arrow of Abenomics. It often leads to the removal of vested interests, so inevitably faces strong resistance from those protected by the regulation. For example agriculture is protected by high tariffs. Therefore farmer's association strongly opposes the participation in TPP (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement ). Now it resists the government's proposal for the reform of Agricultural Corporative.

One of deregulations I want most is seal used for official and business documents. Actually we need seals in various occasions in our life. Especially for documents at banks we are required to use the same seal for each procedure. So we often keep several seals for different banks. If we lose them, we have to go through tedious process to replace them. In Western countries they sign official documents. Signature is apparently safer and sounds more reasonable. Once I accompanied a foreigner to a bank, his signature was accepted instead of seal. In this age of IT, seal　is a barrier for business on the web.

The association of seal makers is said to lobby politians to hold on to their vested interests. I hope that seal is replaced by signature in all documents as a result of the third arrow of Abenomics.