Shoji Mori, secretary general of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, will replace Masaharu Hino as head of the Financial Services Agency, government sources said Wednesday.

The appointment is expected to take effect Jan. 6, when the FRC will be scrapped and merged into the newly launched Cabinet Office, with which the FSA will be affiliated, the sources said.

Mori, 57, is a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat. After retiring from the ministry, he became secretary general of the FRC when it was launched in 1998.

He was involved in the dissolution of failed banks and the injection of public money into troubled financial institutions.

Mori is also well-trusted by FRC Chairman Hakuo Yanagisawa, who will continue on as state minister in charge of financial affairs after the central government reorganization, they said.

Hino, a former prosecutor, has been FSA commissioner for about 21/2 years, ever since the FSA's predecessor, the Financial Supervisory Agency, was launched in July 1998. He has decided to step down because he is scheduled to reach the mandatory retirement age of 65 at the end of March.