Money is suspected to have been transferred illegally from the account of a Mizuho Bank customer who was banking online, one of a growing number of "phishing" scams in Japan, bank officials said Thursday.

A customer saw several hundred thousand yen transferred to another account after following instructions on what is suspected to have been a fake page on the bank's website asking for the customer's password and personal identification code, they said.

Earlier this week, some ¥2 million was illegally transferred from a man's account to another account after he followed similar instructions on the website of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., according to police.

The two banks have frozen their transfer destination accounts for the police investigation.

Pages containing fake instructions, allegedly designed to steal personal information for use in illegal money transfers, have also been seen on the genuine websites of Japan Post Bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

By Tuesday, the National Police Agency detected 65 such cases, including 51 in which bank customers typed in passwords.

Gunning for Nomura

Bloomberg

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. has added to its team of Japan stock analysts in a bid to surpass top-ranked researcher Nomura Holdings Inc.

The bank hired Fumihide Goto from UBS AG to cover electronic parts makers and Kei Takahashi from Bank of America Corp. to study the telecommunications industry, said Yohei Osade, pan-Asia head of equities at Mizuho Securities Co.

That brings the number of equities staff Mizuho has hired since August to at least 12 as the company looks to sustain a revival of its investment banking and brokerage operations. The recruiting may offer a reprieve to employees at securities firms after banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG pared payrolls in Tokyo in the year that ended in March.