TOKYO: Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group Inc. informally decided on a plan to promote Senior Executive Officer Masahiro Kihara, 56, to president to succeed Tatsufumi Sakai, 62, informed sources said Monday.

Sakai will step down as president as of April 1 to take the blame for a series of system failures at the financial group’s core banking arm Mizuho Bank.

Kihara will assume the weighty responsibility of restoring customers’ confidence and rebuilding the organization to prevent recurrences.

After joining Industrial Bank of Japan, a predecessor of Mizuho Bank, in 1989, Kihara worked in the planning division of Mizuho Securities Co. and recently headed a department that oversees investment banking operations.

Since February last year, system glitches and money transfer troubles came to light nine times at Mizuho Bank. Japan’s Financial Services Agency issued a business improvement order to the bank in September 2021 and again in November in the same year.

Besides Sakai, Mizuho Bank President and CEO Koji Fujiwara and Mizuho Financial Group Chairman Yasuhiro Sato will also step down in spring.

JIJI Press