Foreign securities companies may be steadily gaining a foothold in Japan, but many of the Japanese now working for them have a tough time compared with when they used to work at domestic commercial banks and securities firms.
Top management at the foreign companies' units here are usually either former chairmen or vice presidents of major Japanese commercial banks or former heads of Finance Ministry bureaus.
And in the last few years, an increasing number of elite bureaucrats in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Finance Ministry are joining foreign-affiliated securities companies.