FUKUOKA (Kyodo) Nishi-Nippon City Bank came into being Friday through the merger of Nishi-Nippon Bank and Fukuoka City Bank, with the president of the new bank pledging to make it the No. 1 operator in Kyushu.
Former Nishi-Nippon Bank President Tsuneo Shindo assumed the presidency of the Fukuoka-based bank, which has a network of 282 branches and a workforce of 4,700. Former Fukuoka City Bank President Masahiro Honda became its chairman.
"We will seek to become the No. 1 bank in Kyushu by growing together with our customers," Shindo said at an inauguration ceremony.
At present, the new bank ranks second in terms of both deposits and loans as a regional bank in Kyushu, behind Bank of Fukuoka, also based in Fukuoka.
The new bank's balance of deposits, excluding certificates of deposit, stands at 5.81 trillion yen, with its balance of outstanding loans coming to 4.63 trillion yen. These numbers compare with the deposit and loan balances of 6.18 trillion yen and 4.98 trillion yen, respectively, at Bank of Fukuoka.
Technically, the surviving company under corporate merger laws is Nishi-Nippon Bank.
The merger ratio between the two constituent banks was set at 1 to 0.7. This means that the value of one share of Fukuoka City Bank is equivalent to 0.7 share of Nishi-Nippon Bank.
Fukuoka City Bank earlier received 70 billion yen in public funds to bolster its depleted capital base.