Two core banking units of Mizuho Financial Group Inc. merged Monday as part of a group reorganization, creating the second-largest commercial bank in Japan after Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
The new Mizuho Bank was formed by merging retail-oriented Mizuho Bank Ltd. and Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd., which focused on business clients.
Mizuho Bank's estimated ¥94 trillion in deposits and ¥63 trillion in loans are the second only to Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, a unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc.
The merged bank has 455 domestic branches and 71 overseas offices.
Work to consolidate the client data and unify the ATM and Internet banking services of the merging banks was carried out over the weekend. ATM and Internet services restarted at 8 a.m. Monday.
Mizuho Financial Group plans to spend up to ¥300 billion to fully consolidate the banks' computer systems by the end of March 2016.
In March 2011, Mizuho Bank experienced a serious computer failure during a separate attempt to merge banking systems. The flop drew an administrative punishment from the government.