Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (head office)

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (Nihonbashi branch)

is the largest bank in Japan. It was established on January 1, 2006, following the merger of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. and UFJ Bank Ltd. MUFG is one of the three so-called Japanese "megabanks" (along with SMBC and

Mizuho Mizuho () literally means "abundant rice" in Japanese and "harvest" in the figurative sense. It was also an ancient name of Japan. It might refer to: Places * Mizuho, Gifu, a city in Gifu * Mizuho, Tokyo, a town in Tokyo * Mizuho Plateau in Ant ...

). As such, it is considered a

systemically important bank A systemically important financial institution (SIFI) is a bank, insurance company, or other financial institution whose failure might trigger a financial crisis. They are colloquially referred to as "too big to fail". As the financial crisis o ...

by the

Financial Stability Board The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. It was established after the G20 London summit in April 2009 as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum ...

. The bank serves as the core retail, corporate, and investment banking arm of the

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is a Japanese bank holding and financial services company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. MUFG holds assets of around US$3.1 trillion as of 2016 and is one of the "Three Great Houses" of the Mitsubishi Group alongside Mitsubishi Corpor ...

. Its traditional client base is made up of Japanese corporates, but overseas corporate lending increased 35% in the nine months to December 31, 2011. As of June 23, 2019, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group / MUFG Bank was ranked as the largest bank in Japan and the fourth largest in the world. The bank's head office is in

Marunouchi Marunouchi () is a commercial district of Tokyo located in Chiyoda between Tokyo Station and the Imperial Palace. The name, meaning "inside the circle", derives from its location within the palace's outer moat. It is also Tokyo's financial di ...

Chiyoda, Tokyo is a special ward located in central Tokyo, Japan. It is known as Chiyoda City in English.Profile< ...

, and it has 772 other offices in Japan and 76 offices overseas.

History

Formation

MUFG Bank is the product of three bank mergers that occurred between 1996 and 2006.

Mitsubishi Bank was a major Japanese bank that served as the main bank for the Mitsubishi conglomerate/''keiretsu''. It merged with The Bank of Tokyo in 1996 to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (now MUFG Bank). The bank's operations date to 1880, when Mitsubish ...

was founded in 1880 by a former samurai,

Iwasaki Yatarō was a Japanese industrialist and financier known as the founder of Mitsubishi, one of Japan's largest conglomerates. Early life Iwasaki Yatarō was born on 9 January 1835 in Aki, Tosa Province (now Kōchi Prefecture) into a provincial farmin ...

, and was a core member of the

Mitsubishi Group The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

of companies. It merged with

The Bank of Tokyo was a Japanese foreign exchange bank that operated from 1946 to 1996. In January 1996, it merged with Mitsubishi Bank to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (now MUFG Bank). Its headquarters was in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo, adjacent to the ...

in 1996 to form , which at that point was the world's largest bank in terms of total assets. In 1998, upon merger of the then second and third largest Swiss banks,

Union Bank of Switzerland Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) was a Swiss Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. The bank, which at the time was the second largest bank in Switzerland, merged with Swiss Bank Corporation in ...

and

Swiss Bank Corporation Swiss Bank Corporation was a Swiss investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. Prior to its merger, the bank was the third largest in Switzerland with over CHF300 billion of assets and CHF11.7 billion of equ ...

, the newly created

UBS AG UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

became the second largest in the world at the time, behind only the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. The Bank of Tokyo had historically focused on foreign exchange business since its foundation as the

Yokohama Specie Bank was a Japanese bank founded in Yokohama, Japan in the year 1880. Its assets were transferred to The Bank of Tokyo (now MUFG Bank) in 1946. The bank played a significant role in Japanese overseas trade, especially with China. The original ba ...

in 1880, while Mitsubishi had had a stronger focus on domestic corporate and retail banking. Both banks were relatively healthy in the wake of the

Japanese asset price bubble The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. In early 1992, this price bubble burst and Japan's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceleration ...

. Until the Tokyo-Mitsubishi merger took place in 1996,

Sanwa Bank was a major Japanese bank headquartered in Osaka, which operated from 1933 to 2002. It merged with Tokai Bank to form UFJ Bank (now part of MUFG Bank). In the 1990s, it was the most profitable bank in the world, and second-largest in terms of asse ...

, which was based in Osaka and was the anchor of the

Sanwa Group The was a leading Japanese keiretsu, based in Osaka, between World War II and the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s. It remains in existence as a jointly held company called . Sanwa Bank was a major financier for the textile industr ...

keiretsu A is a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings. In the legal sense, it is a type of informal business group that are loosely organized alliances within the social world of Japan's business community. The ''ke ...

, had been considered the strongest bank in Japan, and it had aimed to be the world's largest bank during the "bubble era". By 2000, however, Sanwa was the fourth largest bank in Japan. It entered into merger talks with two other large banks,

Asahi Bank () is the holding company of , the fifth-largest banking group in Japan as of 2012. It is headquartered in the Kiba area of Koto, Tokyo. The main operating entities of the group are Resona Bank, a nationwide corporate and retail bank headq ...

and

Tokai Bank Tōkai ( 東海, literally ''East Sea'') in Japanese may refer to: * Tōkai region, a subregion of Chūbu * Tōkai, Ibaraki, a village, also known as "Tokaimura" (Tokai-village) * Tōkai, Aichi, a city * Tōkai University, a private university in T ...

, to create the world's third-largest bank by assets. Asahi (now part of

Resona Holdings () is the holding company of , the fifth-largest banking group in Japan as of 2012. It is headquartered in the Kiba area of Koto, Tokyo. The main operating entities of the group are Resona Bank, a nationwide corporate and retail bank headqu ...

) pulled out of these talks later that year. By 2001, The Toyo Trust & Banking Co. had been added to the merger group and the combined company was to be called United Financial Holdings of Japan. The merger was completed in 2002 and the new bank was officially named . UFJ was headquartered in Nagoya, the historical headquarters of Tokai Bank. During its short life, it was plagued by bad debt problems and by infighting between the employees of its predecessor companies. The holding companies of BTM and UFJ agreed to merge in 2005, forming Japan's largest bank by assets and market capitalization. This led to litigation between BTM and Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co., which had previously agreed to an alliance with UFJ under which it would take over UFJ's trust banking operations. BTM and UFJ settled their dispute for 2.5 billion yen in late 2006. The merger of the two bank holding companies was completed on October 1, 2005, creating the

. The core banking units of MTFG and UFJ Holdings, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. and UFJ Bank Ltd., respectively, continued to operate separately until January 1, 2006, when the two units combined to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU)

Post-merger operations

Mitsubishi Bank and the Bank of Tokyo each had significant banking subsidiaries in California (

Bank of California The Bank of California was opened in San Francisco, California, on July 4, 1864, by William Chapman Ralston and Darius Ogden Mills. It was the first commercial bank in the Western United States, the second-richest bank in the nation, and considered ...

and Union Bank respectively) before their merger. At the time of the merger, these U.S. banks also merged to form

UnionBanCal Corporation MUFG Americas Holdings Corporation (formerly known as UnionBanCal Corporation) is an intermediate bank holding company based in New York City. It is the parent company of MUFG Union Bank, N.A. and MUFG's consolidated U.S. operations. MUFG Ameri ...

. BTM listed UnionBanCal on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999. In 2008, BTMU purchased all of the outstanding shares of UnionBanCal. BTMU moved its New York-based banking operations to Union Bank and renamed the company

MUFG Union Bank MUFG Union Bank (stylized as UnionBank), is a nationally chartered full-service bank with 398 branches in California, Washington and Oregon which was wholly owned by MUFG Americas Holdings and has been acquired by U.S. Bancorp. Formerly known ...

in 2014. BTMU was investigated by New York banking regulators over its role in routing payments for Iranian customers through its New York branch in violation of U.S. sanctions. BTMU settled with the state for $250 million in 2013. A second settlement was reached for $315 million in 2014 after it was found that

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

had altered an investigation report on the issue; PwC itself was fined $25 million in relation to the matter. On April 1, 2018, the bank was renamed to . This name change aligned the bank name with the holding company name, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), removing "Tokyo" from the name.

Holdings

(approx 63% in Feb 2005; 68% in 2004; 100% in 2008) *

Chong Hing Bank Chong Hing Bank is a bank founded in Hong Kong in 1948. It is headquartered in Central, while the back offices are located in Western District and Mong Kok. It was owned by the Liu family of Hong Kong until it was acquired by the Chinese state- ...

(9.66%) *

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

(22.41%). On September 29, 2008, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group announced that it would acquire a shareholding in Morgan Stanley for US$9 billion. In the midst of the October 2008 stock market crash, concerns over the completion of the Mitsubishi deal caused a dramatic fall in Morgan Stanley's stock price to levels last seen in 1994. Morgan Stanley's share price recovered considerably after Mitsubishi UFJ closed the deal on October 14, 2008. ** The payment from MUFG was supposed to be wired electronically; however, because it needed to be made on an emergency basis on

Columbus Day Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere, and a federal holiday in the United States, which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. ...

when banks were closed in the US, MUFG cut a US$9 billion physical check, the largest amount written via physical check at the time. The physical check was accepted by Robert A. Kindler, Global Head of Mergers and Acquisitions and Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley, at the offices of Wachtell Lipton. *

Bank of Ayudhya Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited, branded and commonly referred to as Krungsri (sometimes stylized as krungsri), is the fifth largest bank in Thailand in terms of assets, loans, and deposits. Through its branches and service outlets are in ...

(76.88% on January 5, 2015; 72% on December 19, 2013) *

Bank Danamon PT Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk is an Indonesian bank established in 1956. It is the sixth largest bank of Indonesia by asset size. History Bank Danamon was established on July 16, 1956, as PT Bank Kopra Indonesia. In 1976, the bank's name was c ...

(92.47%)

References

External links

* *
Official site MUFG (Americas)
* Wiki collection of bibliographic works on The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ {{Authority control Banks of Japan Mitsubishi companies Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Systemically important financial institutions Financial services companies based in Tokyo Japanese companies established in 2006 Banks established in 2006 Japanese brands