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Gareth Allan
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 30, 2017
Japan's mega-banks vie for top role as backers of clean energy
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. are in a neck-and-neck race to be the biggest lead arrangers of lending to the renewable energy industry in the first half of the year, highlighting the more active financing role for Japanese banks in clean energy.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 16, 2017
MUFG's drastic staff restructure set to cut 10,000 positions in 10 years
Japan's biggest bank is set to undergo the most dramatic reduction in head count since it was formed after the nation's banking crisis shook the industry almost 20 years ago.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 20, 2016
Tokyo startup looks to tap satellite images of nighttime neon to forecast GDP
Nowcast Inc., a Japanese financial research and technology startup, has developed a product that estimates economic growth in real time by using satellite images of nighttime lights.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 11, 2016
Robo-adviser startup eyes Japanese millennials' spare change
Like their peers overseas, Japan's millennials aren't known for squirreling away their money. Kazuhisa Shibayama is trying to change that, one coin at a time.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 13, 2016
Fintech venture takes on hedge funds with earnings estimates derived from big data
A Japanese startup is entering the equity research business in a bid to challenge the dominance of securities firms by using computers to crunch vast troves of information and predict companies' earnings.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2016
Apple hopes for e-money growth in cash-carrying Japan
Apple Inc.'s plan to allow Japanese customers to use iPhones to pay for their daily commute underscores the potential for digital payments to grow in a nation where people still prefer to hold cash.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 9, 2016
Japanese banks enter ranks of world's biggest energy lenders
Japanese banks, known for the risk-aversion that spared them the worst of the credit crisis, have quietly grown into some of the world's largest energy lenders.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 22, 2016
Japan Post to fight negative rates with shift to risk assets
Japan Post Holdings Co. will shift more of its $2.6 trillion investment portfolio to riskier assets to boost profitability as negative interest rates shrink income from government bonds.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 4, 2016
After winning at Japanese chess, this computer may help decide loans
Having defeated a human shogi (Japanese chess) expert, this computer program's next task is to figure out whether you can make the payments on a new mortgage.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 13, 2015
Record-low bad debts make up for disappearing loan profit
Plunging interest rates are helping reduce Japanese banks' bad debt to record-low levels of almost a fifth of their highs 13 years ago.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past