, abbreviated as MHFG, or simply called Mizuho, is a

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

ing

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

headquartered in the

Ōtemachi is a district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is located north of Tokyo Station and Marunouchi, east of the Imperial Palace, west of Nihonbashi and south of Kanda. It is the location of the former site of the village of Shibazaki, the most a ...

district of

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

, Japan. The name "" literally means "abundant rice" in Japanese and "harvest" in the figurative sense. Upon its founding, it was the largest bank in the world by assets. 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 ...

. It holds

assets In financial accountancy, financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value ...

in excess of $1.8 trillion US dollars through its control of

Mizuho Bank is the integrated retail and corporate banking unit of Mizuho Financial Group (; ), the third largest financial services company in Japan, with total assets of approximately $1.8 trillion in 2017. Mizuho is one of the three so-called Japanese ...

and other operating subsidiaries. The company's combined holdings form the third largest

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

group in Japan. Its banking businesses rank third in Japan after

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 ...

and

SMBC Group is a Japanese multinational banking and financial services institution headquartered in Yurakucho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The group operates in retail, corporate, and investment banking segment worldwide. It provides financial products and serv ...

. It is the 15th largest banking institution in the world by total assets as of December 2018. It is the 90th largest company in the world according to Forbes rankings as of May 2017. It is listed on the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. It is the third largest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies, and the largest in Asia. It had 2,292 listed co ...

—where it is a constituent of the

Nikkei 225 The Nikkei 225, or , more commonly called the ''Nikkei'' or the ''Nikkei index'' (), is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It has been calculated daily by the '' Nihon Keizai Shimbun'' (''The Nikkei'') newspaper since 1950 ...

and

TOPIX , commonly known as TOPIX, along with the Nikkei 225, is an important stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Japan, tracking all domestic companies of the exchange's Prime market division. It is calculated and published by the T ...

Core30 indices—and in the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

in the form of

American depositary receipt An American depositary receipt (ADR, and sometimes spelled ''depository'') is a negotiable security that represents securities of a foreign company and allows that company's shares to trade in the U.S. financial markets. Shares of many non-U.S ...

s. Mizuho offers a range of financial services, including banking, securities, trust and asset management services, employing more than 59,000 people throughout 880 offices.

History

Mizuho was established originally as Mizuho Holdings, Inc. by the merger of

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank , abbreviated as , was one of the largest banks in the world during the latter half of the 20th century. Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank was created in 1971 by a consortium of two banks: Dai-Ichi Bank, Japan's oldest bank, and Nippon Kangyo Bank, a state fin ...

Fuji Bank The was one of Japan's major banks during the post–World War II era. It combined with Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan in 2000 to form Mizuho Financial Group, and changed its name to Mizuho Corporate Bank in 2002 after t ...

, and the

Industrial Bank of Japan The Industrial Bank of Japan, Limited (IBJ), based in Tokyo, Japan, was one of the largest banks in the world during the latter half of the 20th century. It combined with Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Fuji Bank in 2002 to form Mizuho Financial Group ...

in 2000. The earliest history of the companies that formed the Mizuho group was Yasuda-ya, which was founded as a private company in 1864. Then in 1872 the Dai-Ichi Bank, Ltd. was established as the first bank in Japan to be established under the nation's newly minted National Bank Act of 1872. In 1897 the Nippon Kangyo Bank, Ltd. and the

, Limited were next established as governmental institutions. In 1912 Yasuda-ya was incorporated and renamed Yasuda Bank, in a process where Yasuda absorbed the assets and business of seventeen different Japanese banking institutions. In 1948 Yasuda Bank was itself renamed the Fuji Bank, Limited. Over the coming years, Fuji Bank would serve as the major financier for post-war Japanese economic growth, working with other major banks as partners when it was at risk of over-extending its funds. In 1950 the Nippon Kangyo Bank and IBJ were re-privatized after serving as semi-public banks for decades, following a recommendation from the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur and the United States during the post-World War II economic reforms. In 1971 the Dai-ichi Bank and the Nippon Kangyo Bank merged to form the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Limited. Mizuho itself was created from the remnants of these mergers, and in 1999 DKB, Fuji and IBJ announced an agreement to consolidate the three banks' operations. This resulted in the establishment of the holding company named Mizuho Holdings, Inc in the year 2000. Then in 2002 DKB, Fuji and IBJ were officially and legally combined into two banks, Mizuho Bank, Ltd. and Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd. Initially Mizuho traded under the ticker symbol MHHD on the London Stock Exchange. The merger resulted in the world's first trillion-dollar bank, with its $1.2 trillion in assets, surpassing the next largest bank by about $480 billion. The move has been considered to have formed one of the first "mega-institutions" in the financial industry, beginning a trend in the industry of large-scale bank mergers referred to as the "consolidation movement" during the 2000s. Though while other mega-institutions were composed of one major player and several minor ones, Mizuho was composed of three relatively equal institutions in terms of their size and influence. It remained the largest mega-bank in the world until 2005. The name "Mizuho" means "new, bountiful, and rich harvest of rice" in Japanese. The original structure saw the founding of the Mizuho Bank, focusing on individuals and SMEs, and the Mizuho Corporate Bank, which focuses on corporate entities. The initial strategy of the company was to expand its lending operations with individuals and SMEs, and begin to offer fee-based services including securitizations, merger and acquisitions support, security-based investment banking, and syndicated loans. At the time, Mizuho controlled about 50% of the syndicated loans market. Mizuho also launched one of the first Internet-based securities products in 2000. In 2003, Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. took over the operations of Mizuho Holdings. On October 1, 2005, all subsidiaries of Mizuho Holdings were transferred to the direct control of Mizuho Financial Group. Mizuho Holdings, no longer a bank holding company, was then renamed Mizuho Financial Strategy, which now focuses on providing advisory services. Mizuho Financial Group was in turn listed on the

under the stock symbol MFG in 2006. Mizuho, through its operations in New York, became involved in the

subprime mortgage crisis The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, 2007–2008 global financial crisis. It was triggered by a large decline ...

and lost seven billion dollars on the sale of

collateralized debt obligation A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS).Lepke ...

s backed by subprime mortgages. It is the Asian bank which suffered the most losses due to the crisis. In 2012 Mizuho Financial Group acquired 100% of the assets from the Brazilian bank Banco WestLB do Brasil S.A. In 2014 the company underwent a board of directors reform in order to streamline its corporate culture into a more of a single identity, although its original board founded in 2002 was consistent with Japanese banking protocols. In 2016 they opened their global transactions banking headquarters in Singapore, and have offices for this unit in China, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, and New York City. That year they also began a partnership with Cognizant, to develop block-chain methods of securing the banks private records.

Presidents and CEOs

# Katsuyuki Sugita (2001–2002) #

Terunobu Maeda is a Japanese investor who has been the President and CEO of Mizuho Financial Group (2002–2009) and Chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association (2005–2006). He’s currently the president of NHK. Maeda was born in Kumamoto, raised in Nak ...

(2002–2009) # Takashi Tsukamoto (2009–2011) # Yasuhiro Sato (2011–2018) # Tatsufumi Sakai (2018–2022) # Masahiro Kihara (since 2022)

Divisions

Mizuho splits its business into four distinct divisions, on a global basis:

Retail Group

Mizuho is active in

retail banking Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking. Banking servi ...

with 515 branches and over 11,000

automated teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fun ...

s (ATMs). Mizuho Bank is the only bank, other than

Japan Post Bank , is a Japanese bank headquartered in Tokyo. It is a corporation held by Japan Post Holdings, in which the government of Japan has a majority stake. It is a major financial institution that started in 1875 as a postal savings system, and that st ...

, to have branches in every

prefecture A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...

in Japan. It serves over 26 million Japanese households, 90,000

SME SME may refer to: Economics * Small and medium-sized enterprises * Socialist market economy, an economic system of China Organizations Music * SME Limited, UK audio turntable manufacturer * Sony Music Entertainment, US * Spontaneous Music Ensembl ...

customers, 2500 corporations, and retail brokerage clients under the name Mizuho Investors Securities nationwide, with $114 billion in retail customer assets under its management as of 2016. *

* Mizuho Capital

Global Corporate Group

Mizuho predecessors, the

(DKB), the

(Fuji) and the

(IBJ), had great control over many Japanese companies through

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 ...

system. The three banks led the

DKB Group The or the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Group was the largest Japanese keiretsu in the late 1990s. The group emerged after World War II and coalesced around the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank. Two of DKB's largest clients, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Furukawa Electric ...

Fuyo Group is a Japanese ''keiretsu'' descended from the Yasuda zaibatsu, Asano zaibatsu and Okura zaibatsu. They are major business grouping in Japan up to World War II. In 1948, Yasuda was dismantled, with its key financial arm Yasuda Bank becoming Fuj ...

and the IBJ Group respectively. The Fuyo Group traces its history as far back as the old Yasuda zaibatsu. Even now, seven out of ten companies listed on the

have dealings with Mizuho. * Mizuho Securities

Global wealth and asset management

Mizuho Trust & Banking is the trust banking arm of Mizuho Financial Group. History The merger of the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan in 2000 was followed by the merger of their respective trust banking subsidiaries, creating Mizuho Tru ...

* Mizuho Private Wealth Management *

Asset Management One Asset Management One Co., Ltd. (アセットマネジメントOne株式会社), abbreviated as AM-One, is a Japanese asset management company. It is a subsidiary of the Mizuho Financial Group and is one of the largest asset management companies i ...

Asset Management One manages a number of ETFs which are listed in Japan, but some of these ETFs are very liquid because no market maker was appointed. For example, One ETF Gold (1683:JP) frequently trades at a discount of more than 10% to the NAV.

Strategy affiliates

Mizuho Financial Strategy Mizuho Financial Strategy Co.,Ltd. (株式会社みずほフィナンシャルストラテジー) is a company that focuses on providing advisory services. It is the successor of Mizuho Holdings, Inc. (MHI), which was a Japanese bank holding compa ...

, formerly Mizuho Holdings, Inc. * Mizuho Research Institute * Mizuho Information & Research Institute

Offices

Image:Mizuho Financial Group (headquarters).jpg, Former Mizuho Financial Group headquarters (now

Otemachi Tower The is a high-rise office building with integrated retail and restaurant facilities (which are also known as OTEMORI) located in the Otemachi business district in Chiyoda ward, Tokyo. The 38-story tower serves as the headquarters of Mizuho ...

), formerly

head office, in

, Tokyo until 2014 Image:Mizuho Bank, Ltd. (head office).jpg,

head office in Uchisaiwaicho, Tokyo (''see also

Mizuho Bank Uchisaiwaichō Head Office Building is a 143 m (469 ft) tall office skyscraper in Tokyo, Japan. At 38 stories the building is the 86th tallest building in Tokyo. It contains 1.4 million sq ft (134,974 m²) of office space, 100% of which is now occupied by Mizuho Bank, t ...

'') Image:Industrial Bank of Japan Head Office.jpg,

Mizuho Corporate Bank , or MHCB, was the corporate and investment banking subsidiary of Mizuho Financial Group, the second-biggest Japanese financial services conglomerate, prior to the reintegration of investment banking services under the Mizuho Bank name in July 20 ...

head office, formerly the

head office, bordering MHFG HQ in

, Tokyo Image:Otemachi First Square, Tokyo, Japan.jpg, Mizuho Securities Co. occupies Ōtemachi First Square, bordering MHFG HQ, in

, Tokyo.

Sponsorship

Mizuho is a sponsor of the

Tokyo International Marathon The Tokyo International Marathon was a marathon for male elite runners held in Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japa ...

and the

2020 Olympic Games The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

and

2020 Paralympic Games The , branded as the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, was an international multi-sport parasports event held from 24 August to 5 September 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. They were the 16th Summer Paralympic Games as organized by the International Paralymp ...

Notable employees

Yoichiro Esaki is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Shinjuku, Tokyo and a graduate of Keio University, he worked at the Industrial Bank of Japan ...

, member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

* Rin Ishigaki, poet *

Hirotaka Ishihara is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Kanagawa Prefecture and graduate of Keio University, he was elected to the House of Representativ ...

, member of the House of Representatives, son of

Shintaro Ishihara was a Japanese politician and writer who was Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. Being the former leader of the radical right Japan Restoration Party, he was one of the most prominent ultranationalists in modern Japanese politics. An ultranat ...

Zenkichi Kojima was the mayor of Shizuoka City in Japan until April, 2011, when he was succeeded by Nobuhiro Tanabe. A graduate of the University of Tokyo, he was first elected mayor in 1998 after serving in the assembly of Shizuoka Prefecture for three term ...

, mayor of

Shizuoka, Shizuoka is the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, and the prefecture's second-largest city in both population and area. It has been populated since prehistoric times. the city had an estimated population of 690,881 in 106,087 households, and ...

Takeaki Matsumoto is a Japanese politician who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2011. A native of Tokyo and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2000 after running unsuccessfully as an i ...

, member of the House of Representatives * Shoichi Nakagawa,

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

, Minister of State in charge of Financial Services (2008–2009) *

Kei Ogura Kei Ogura (Ogura Kei, 小椋佳, born January 18, 1944, in Ueno, Taito, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese singer, songwriter and composer. He was also a bank clerk of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, after graduation from the University of Tokyo. His musical care ...

, singer *

Stanley Praimnath Stanley Praimnath (born October 27, 1956) is a survivor of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He worked as an executive for Fuji Bank on the 81st floor of the South Tower (WTC 2), the second tower struck that day. He wa ...

, survivor of the destruction of the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

September 11th, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Suicide attack, suicide List of terrorist incidents, terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, ...

Mitsu Shimojo is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Matsumoto, Nagano and graduate of Shinshu University , abbreviated to , is a Japanese national ...

, member of the House of Representatives *

Yukio Tomioka is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a former member of the House of Councillors in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Kawaguchi, Saitama and graduate of Waseda University, he worked at the Fuji Bank (now part of Mi ...

, member of the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, ...

Controversies

In September 2013, a routine regulatory control unveiled that Mizuho enabled loans of up to $1.9 million to the

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

Japanese mafia. It also appeared that loans to the mob had been approved through its affiliate credit company Orient Corp. This scandal led to the resignation of the group's CEO Takashi Tsukamoto. In December 2019, a report named Mizuho as th
top private lender
to coal developers between January 2017 and September 2019. In March 2020, Japanese NG
Kiko Network
filed the first climate related shareholder resolution with a Japanese company proposing Mizuho align its investments with the goals of the Paris Agreement. As of April 2020, three Scandinavian pension funds with a combined $178 Billion AUM expressed their support for the resolution.

References

External links

*
Mizuho Financial Group Inc.
by

Google Finance Google Finance is a website focusing on business news and financial information hosted by Google. History Google Finance was first launched by Google on March 21, 2006. The service featured business and enterprise headlines for many corporation ...

Mizuho Watch by Inner City Press
{{Authority control Banks of Japan Conglomerate companies based in Tokyo Holding companies based in Tokyo Multinational companies headquartered in Japan Financial services companies based in Tokyo Banks established in 2001 Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies listed on the Osaka Exchange Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Fuyo Group Systemically important financial institutions Holding companies established in 2001