Japan

Rising payroll expenses were a key drag on the banks’ financial performance.

It's a continued shift toward assets with higher risk weights.

More than 70% of the banks' overseas loans were to non-Japanese clients.

The gap between interest rates on existing loans and those on new loans is narrowing.

Customer expectations for financial and banking services are rising at an ever faster rate. The approaches of banks are increasingly framed in black and white terms of good and bad. Banks found wanting or less than desirable are abandoned like sinking ships as customers take their transactions and businesses to more preferred institutions. Digital has made it simpler for customers to move their business to a different bank at the same time that it has made it possible for “undesirable” transaction business reviews to be disseminated nearly instantaneously — and as negative customer experiences can be shared in the blink of an eye, analog banks risk being left behind in the dust of the new digital era.

The bank hopes for a 20% boost in forex volume with the push into transaction businesses.

The bank eyes hiring more than 10 bankers.

The bank is avoiding Brexit 'disruption'.

The merger involves Fukuoka Financial Group and local rival Eighteenth Bank.

Profits could be slashed by up to $900,000 over the next three years.

One of the reasons is that it supports risk-adjusted profitability.

Sources told Reuters that the head of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), the core business of Japan's biggest "megabank," has decided to step down for health reasons barely a year into the job.

The reorganisation is expected to increase pre-tax profits by around US$43b.

They are most likely to issue these in USD.

The city's cheaper rents, moderate taxes attract MUFG and Mizuho.

This is after a successful pilot programme for a cloud-based payments platform.