Also includes:
- Breaking news and careful analysis on the changing FSA
regulatory guidelines and the recently-privatised Japan Post
Bank.
- A comprehensive profile of players and products including
the second tier of banks, largely unknown to the West, but a huge
source of product marketing opportunities.
- Collected material from Japanese-language sources plus a
comprehensive overview of statistics and exclusive interviews with
industry experts.
Who should read this?
Executives within Retail and Investment Banking with
responsibility for International marketing, Human resources
international staffing issues, Risk management and Japan-specific
risk assessment, and Japan-related IT issues.
What are they looking for?
Information on how to break into Japan, in particular risk,
compliance, staffing, IT and an overview of Japanese banking
institutions.
About the Author:
Hugh Ashton graduated from the University of Cambridge 1977 and
moved to Japan in 1988. He has worked with major international
investment banks and Japanese retail
banks for business continuity planning, internal policy and
procedure documentation and internal audit reports. Hugh has
assisted in the implementation of a special
foreign-designed retail financial outlet for a major Japanese
non-bank entity together with the marketing subsidiary of a
Japanese retail bank.
To purchase this report, or to request a report summary or list
of case studies, call Jeannie on +44 (0) 207 563 5640
or email info@vrlfinancialnews.com
The Japanese banking system is complex, with
different layers of enterprises, ranging from the megabanks formed
in the late 1990s and early 2000s by the merging of the city banks,
together with regional banks, to labour and agricul- tural credit
unions and the like. All of these entities provide some sort of
retail banking services. In addition, there are various non-bank
enterprises which provide some services similar to those provided
by banks, e.g. consumer credit companies.
In the boom years of the 1980s, the Japanese
economy floated on a bubble of inflated land prices, and the banks
lent money against over-valued collateral, usu- ally in the form of
real estate assets, resulting in a mountain of bad debt that
remained on the banks’ books for a number of years (the “lost
decade”) until the early 2000s. The cleanup of these debts and the
mergers alluded to above have put the major Japanese banks on a
firm financial footing once again.
The regulation of the financial services
industry was carried out by the Ministry of Finance until the “Big
Bang” of the late 1990s/early 2000s, when the Financial Services
Agency took over this task. The FSA has achieved its first major
goal of cleaning up the bad debts, and putting Japan’s financial
services back on an even keel. Its next major task is the
revitalisation of the Japanese financial markets by reforming
regulation, and removing the straitjacket within which the industry
has had to operate until recently.
It seems that the central government is
sensing a wind of change blowing through Japanese businesses and
the population as a whole, and has started to relax its grip on
banks, among other businesses. There seems to be a very good chance
that Japan will further open up to banking best practice. The
recent moves and announcements by the regulatory authorities seem
to signal a relaxation of the centralised iron grip over the
banking industry in Japan, and the signs from the government all
seem to point in the direction of welcoming foreign capital and
expertise from overseas to revitalise the Japanese financial
landscape.
If there is still some resentment directed
against non-Japanese companies taking over businesses, such as
banking, that traditionally “belong” to Japanese enterprises, this
attitude is starting to become less common. For example, it was
reported that at the end of 2007, foreign investors had over 5%
holdings in 11 regional banks. This may not seem like a significant
proportion, but it is a very substantial increase from the four
banks of a year earlier in which overseas investors held more than
5%.
Japan presents its own unique social aspects
that affect banking enterprises, that entrants to the market should
make themselves aware of. For example:
- The lack of personal chequing
services.
- The reliance on cash as a
payment method.
- The saving habits of
individuals within Japan.
- The problems related to
personal names in Japan, which can lead to com- pliance, legal, and
even reputational issues in cases of identity theft, etc.
Though there are relatively few bank branches
in Japan, banks’ customers are served by networks of ATMs that
provide a full range of services and are located outside the
banking network, in convenience stores and shopping centres that
provide some opportunities for entrants to the Japanese banking
scene...
1. Introduction — The structure of Japanese
banking
Megabucks and city banks
Regional banks
Credit associations and agricultural banks
Online and "new" banks
Foreign banks
Japan Post Bank
Credit institutions
Brokers and fund managers
2. Japanese banking — a brief
history
The land bubble
The "lost decade"
The banks and retail banking
3. The influence of regulation
The
deposit insurance cap
Moves away from regulation to guidance
Further thoughts on deregulation
International associations
The personal Information Protection Law
4. Some aspects of Japanese
society
Cash-based society
Banking habits
The feminine touch
Where's my cheque book?
Signed or sealed?
Japan saves
Geographical differences within Japan
The hierarchy of Japanese society
5. Is Japan overbanked?
The customer
experience of Japanese retail banking
Branch design
Promoting the bank's brand
The role of the ATM in Japanese retail banking
Retail banking services outside banks
6. I want to be a loan
Credit
bureaux
Consumer finance organisations
Credit cards
7. Payment instruments
Electronic
money
Debit cards
8. Other products
Non-account
products
Bancassurance
9. Retail bank-related crime and fraud in
Japan
Organised crime
10. Staffing issues
Part-time and
temporary workers
Using the forgotten 50%
It and the Indian connection
11. IT Considerations
IT regulation
and best practices
Internet and remote banking
Disaster recovery and business continuity
12. Case studies
Japan Post Bank -
possible windows of opportunity
Japan Post Bank its rivals
Bank of Yokohama remote banking
Citibank Japan
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