The Japan Post Holdings Co. group said Thursday it had confirmed Japan Post Insurance Co. products were sold improperly by 1,447 post office workers.
An in-house investigation conducted through Feb. 19 also found sales clerks committed a total of 1,761 violations of the law or internal rules.
Other, similar violations are suspected to have been involved in 6,690 contracts, so the number of violators is expected to rise further. The group will consider disciplinary action later.
No sales targets will be set for insurance, investment trust funds or other financial products sold at post offices for fiscal 2020, Hiroya Masuda, president and chief executive officer of the holding company, told a news conference.
That is because the group needs to prioritize relief measures for the affected policyholders, he said.
“We’ll give top priority to restoration of trust,” Masuda stressed, adding that sales targets should be revived only after a drastic review of the group’s sales practice, which places too much emphasis on winning new contracts.
For the nine months to December last year, the number of newly concluded Japan Post Insurance contracts for individual customers halved from the year before.
The Financial Services Agency and the internal affairs ministry ordered Japan Post Insurance to suspend sales activities until the end of next month.
“It’s too early” to speak about sales activities from April, Masuda said.
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