Resona Holdings Inc. might tie up with Nomura Securities Co., a key arm of Nomura Holdings Inc., on conveying to Nomura stock buy and sell orders it would receive at its bank branches on a commission basis, sources close to Resona said Friday.
Banks will be authorized to act as agents for brokerages starting Dec. 1, and will be able to communicate buy and sell orders for stocks, bonds and other securities to the brokerages on a commission basis.
The authorization for banks is coming after last year's revision in the Securities and Exchange Law allowed, on April 1, qualified individuals and firms -- except for banks at that point -- to mediate transactions for brokerages.
Since Resona Holdings has no brokerage under its wing, Resona has come to envisage entering a tieup with Nomura, which has deep business ties with Daiwa Bank, one of its two major predecessor banks.
Upping profitability has been a pressing task for Resona, which is faced with the need to pay off 3 trillion yen in public funds it received to replenish its depleted capital base at the time of last year's partial nationalization and the capital injections that preceded it.
To this end, Resona Holdings earlier took a series of steps, including a tieup with ALICO Japan, a Japanese unit of American International Group Inc., to jointly capitalize on pension insurance operations.