News you may have missed from Japan’s banking players big and small:
- Mizuho Financial Group will start selling information on consumers’ spending habits and other aggregated data in a bid to expand beyond the traditional lending business. The move is the first of its kind by a Japanese bank. The bank group stressed that the data would be aggregated and anonymous.
- The Financial Services Agency plans to revise its guidelines on regulating banks to demand stricter ID checks for account transfers related to electronic payment services. The move comes in response to a series of fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts via major mobile carrier NTT Docomo’s e-payment service.
- Resona Bank lost a disk containing data on 14,561 customers, it said last month. The data does not feature account and phone numbers but does include names and addresses. Resona said there is no evidence that the disk was stolen, and said that any attempted access by a third party would be blocked by a password.
- The merger of two Nagasaki banks may expose flaws in PM Suga’s rescue plan to revitalize regional economies by creating stronger lenders. Some in Nagasaki Prefecture fear that the merged bank, which would belong to a financial group based in Fukuoka Prefecture, may shift its focus away from local borrowers.
- Mizuho will become the first Japan megabank to charge fees for obtaining new passbooks in January as it seeks to foster a paperless banking, writes Osamu Tsukimori. Mizuho will encourage new customers to use its free online passbook, with which they can see bank transactions for up to 10 years via smartphone.