Tag - banks

 
Menu
Search
 
July 04, 2026
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

BANKS

Alipay has been mentioned by legislators in discussions about the use of foreign payment apps in Japan.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 10, 2026
Chinese payment apps raise questions in Japan
Legislators and regulators wonder if the apps are being used to bypass the domestic financial system.
Pedestrians in the Ginza district of Tokyo. The U.S. and Israeli war on Iran is projected to halt developing Asia’s economic upswing, the Asian Development Bank has said.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 10, 2026
Asia economic growth to slow even if oil stabilizes, ADB warns
The U.S. and Israeli war on Iran is projected to halt developing Asia’s economic upswing.
SoftBank Group is one of the few Japanese companies that regularly issue corporate bonds.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 9, 2026
Japan wants to transform its sleepy corporate bond market
The hope is to make it a source for much-needed growth capital and provide more avenues to funding.
Mizuho Trust & Banking President & CEO Kenichi Sasada at the group's office in Tokyo last month
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2026
Mizuho Trust to partner with Nasdaq to attract global investors
“Companies need dialogue” with overseas investors to spur investment for growth, President and CEO Kenichi Sasada said.
Nippon Life Insurance's Tokyo headquarters
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 7, 2026
SMFG and Nippon Life discuss $3 billion LBO loan fund
The move would mark a milestone in Japan’s credit market, where the three biggest banks have dominated lending.
Women walk under a sign of the Financial Services Agency in Tokyo. By conditionally easing capital adequacy regulations for banks, the FSA aims to promote industrial reorganization and support startups and midsize companies in rural areas.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 4, 2026
FSA to ease bank capital rules to promote investment
The plan is to reduce capital buffers against loss risks while still maintaining fiscal soundness, informed sources said Friday.
The Cabinet of Sanae Takaichi approved amendments to the criminal proceeds law to strengthen anti–money laundering measures, including allowing police to open dummy online bank accounts to trace scam funds while protecting victims’ deposits.
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2026
Japan to step up its fight against money laundering by scammers
The change will allow police to open online bank accounts under fictitious names for scammers to then use so police can track the flow of money.
A shopper browses the coffee aisle at a supermarket in Canada. The world's central bankers are trying to get a read on how people are navigating their finances through yet another energy shock.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Apr 3, 2026
Central banks’ inflation mood puzzle: more judgment than science
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks have ‌developed new tools to fill gaps in data about behavior, but measuring expectations remains more an art than an exact science.
MUFG has about 1,300 staff involved globally in the transaction-banking business.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 2, 2026
MUFG to take on global peers for slice of $1.3 trillion transaction-banking pie
Japan’s largest lender is looking to capitalize on its competitive strengths in key Asian markets as it strives to catch up with global peers.
Masahiko Kato, chairperson of the Japanese Bankers Association, speaks during an interview in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on March 26.
BUSINESS
Apr 1, 2026
Japanese banks to share data on fraudulent accounts from April 2027
Under the initiative, account data will be shared through the Cooperation agency for Anti-Money Laundering.
Despite repeated technological upheavals, finance has preserved its profits by reinventing fee-generating services. But the rise of AI could ultimately render much of the industry irrelevant.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2026
AI threatens the finance industry’s perpetual profit machine
The utopian promise of AI is abundance, but the only guaranteed beneficiaries are the super elites that own the machines.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group CEO Toru Nakashima says the banking group is seeking growth without large acquisitions.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 31, 2026
SMFG cools on acquisitions as banking giant sets new profit goal
Japan’s second-largest lender is aiming for ¥2 trillion in profit and a 13% return on tangible equity in three years.
Shizuoka Financial Group President Hisashi Shibata (center), Bank of Nagoya President Ichiro Fujiwara (right) and others at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2026
Two Japanese regional banks’ shares surge in latest merger pact
The move is the latest example of Japan’s regional lenders joining forces in a market hit by a shrinking population.
The former offices of MBaer Merchant Bank in Zurich. The bank, which was accused by regulatory authorities of money laundering schemes linked to Venezuela, Russia and Iran, was forced to liquidate on Feb. 27.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 26, 2026
How a dirty money trail from Venezuela to Iran brought down a Swiss bank
MBaer Merchant Bank built a lucrative business charging clients as much as ten times the going rate to process payments that other banks wouldn’t handle.
Wakkanai Shinkin Bank’s headquarters in Wakkanai, Hokkaido
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 25, 2026
A tiny bank runs dry of borrowers as Japan’s population shrinks
Many rural banks are struggling, but for a small credit union in Hokkaido, the situation is extreme.
The Tokyo High Court has upheld a lower court ruling sentencing a former MUFG banker to nine years in prison for allegedly stealing assets worth ¥390 million from safe deposit boxes.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2026
Tokyo High Court upholds nine-year jail term for ex-MUFG banker
The 47-year-old former banker was sentenced to nine years in prison for allegedly stealing assets worth ¥390 million from safe deposit boxes.
The U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of ​Canada on Wednesday both opted to hold interest rates steady, as did the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the central banks of Switzerland and Sweden on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 20, 2026
Central banks brace for war-led inflation and ‘stagflation’ risk
Policymakers are determined to rein ‌in prices without ‌derailing still-patchy economic growth, and to avoid a “stagflation” mix of recession and price surges.
An oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia
BUSINESS
Mar 18, 2026
SMBC asks banks to confirm Saudi energy loan backing amid war
The unusual step highlights the risks the conflict in Iran poses for lending in Asia.
The Japanese Bankers Association will release risk management guidelines for lenders funding leveraged buyout deals, according to sources.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 12, 2026
Japan main bank lobby to establish risk guidelines for leveraged loans
Smaller regional banks have become more active in the market for such debt as a shrinking population weighs on their traditional lending operations.
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust is keen to tap Raymond James Financial’s clientele to provide funds for mergers and acquisitions and sell Japan-related investment products to wealthy individuals.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 4, 2026
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust said to ally with Raymond James in U.S.
Raymond James has a broad network of small and medium-sized business clients and wealth management customers across the United States.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
Japanese-language education is at a turning point
The country is gradually transforming Japanese-language education from a volunteer-driven system into a professional, government-supported network to better serve its growing foreign population. 
Japan plans to sharply raise fees for residence permits from October
Foreign tourists walk on the path leading to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in May.
Thailand gets serious about chasing high-spending tourists
Chinese tourists at Wat Arun Ratchawararam Rathawaramahawihan in Bangkok
Iran war exposed, but hasn’t changed, Japan’s reliance on imported oil
Wind turbines generate energy from strong easterly winds on the Shonai Plain in Yamagata Prefecture. Despite the oil crisis caused by conflict near the Strait of Hormuz, and concerns instability in the region could continue to impact supply and the price of imports, the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi does not seem to be drawing on the war as a pretext to hasten progress toward Japan's renewable goals.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Digital marketer Netyear zeros in on generative AI
Digital marketer Netyear zeros in on generative AI

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER