• Mizuho Financial President Tatsufumi Sakai and Mizuho Bank President and CEO Koji Fujiwara will step down on April 1 next year

TOKYO: Japan’s Financial Services Agency on Friday issued its second business improvement order over a series of system failures to Mizuho Bank and its parent, Mizuho Financial Group Inc.

The FSA told the bank and its parent to clarify management responsibility for causing system breakdowns eight times since February and come up with preventive measures and drastically reform its corporate culture.

The megabank group was also told to submit a business improvement plan, including the preventive and reform measures, by Jan. 17, 2022. The group will report progress on the plan every three months from next April.

Mizuho Financial President Tatsufumi Sakai and Mizuho Bank President and CEO Koji Fujiwara will step down on April 1 next year. Deputy President Masahiko Kato will succeed Fujiwara as president of the bank.

Mizuho Financial Chairman Yasuhiro Sato will also step down as chairman on April 1 and as director in late June.

In the business improvement order, the FSA said that the group has undermined confidence in Japan’s financial settlement system, concluding that the management bears grave responsibility over the glitches.

The Mizuho group does not look closely at the situations of information technology and sales divisions or pay enough attention to how system failures would affect its customers, the FSA said.

The group has failed to learn from its massive system failures in 2002 and 2011, the agency said, stressing that its functions to correct its own problems “are not working sufficiently.”

Fresh system failures hit Mizuho Bank even after the group released preventive measures in June this year over earlier glitches.

The FSA issued its first business improvement order over the string of system failures in September even before completing its inspection, demanding that the bank postpone nonurgent system updates.

Also, the bank was found to have conducted remittances during the eighth glitch on Sept. 30 without sufficient checks to prevent money laundering as stipulated in the foreign exchange law.

On Friday, the Finance Ministry ordered Mizuho Bank to take corrective steps under the law for neglecting confirmation procedures.

JIJI Press