MUFG reaps benefits from releases and Morgan Stanley but needs do the same from its core businesses.

The Japanese currency continues to slide as traders anticipate interest-rate movement in the US, but even the Fed's hawkish tilt does not guarantee that this direction of travel will be sustained.

A new pledge to use foreign reserves to buy ESG assets is one of many institutional measures in Japan. But the country has still not realized its green potential at the corporate level.

How much right does a bank have to instruct your behaviour when working from home? At Nomura in Japan, plenty, it seems – though the bank has only concern for your health at heart.

SMBC’s tie-up with Jefferies is only the latest in a series of acquisitions, partnerships and initiatives it has undertaken from India to Vietnam to Wall Street. Now, says president and chief executive Jun Ohta, it is time to make them work.

There’s a clear role model for US-Japan tie-ups in New York investment banking. Can the new partnership between Jefferies and SMBC follow it?

No Japanese bank has had a shot at Indian retail before now. Could this be the first of several attempts?

It is showtime. One year after Toshiba’s AGM triggered 12 months of shareholder revolt and the departure of the CEO and several other key figures, it is time for the next meeting. They will have plenty to discuss.

Upstart Jarden has fine people; Nomura has network and balance sheet. Will a partnership work?

Kentaro Okuda had been delivering. Nomura was reporting strong and sustainable profits, with a streamlined international business driven by trading in the Americas. Then came Archegos.

The Japanese bank has spent big money to hire a wealth management team, but spiralling costs and a lack of name recognition in key markets leave many asking: how realistic are its ambitions?

Activist investor victory may open the floodgates for shareholder challenges against Japanese corporate management.

To have one of your leading shareholders demand an extraordinary general meeting is unfortunate – two looks like a pattern. Japanese corporate giant Toshiba is facing a messy situation.

International business bails out the domestic struggle for MUFG.

Japanese conglomerates have woken up to the need to divest non-core assets; international private equity houses have plenty of dry powder with which to buy them. This happy alignment appears to have survived Covid-19, unlike other forms of cross-border M&A.

Aggressive buying of technology stock call options by SoftBank and others is distorting prices but also creating opportunities for more measured investors – along with trading revenue for banks.

There is seemingly no easing of risk for the two countries, despite the anticipated third-quarter economic improvement.

Transaction is part of a trend for divestment from conglomerates to private equity.

A complex investment in Wirecard by Deutsche Bank veterans now working at SoftBank has effectively compounded the eventual embarrassment for Germany Inc from the failure of the online payments firm.

A successful international strategy offers relief from stagnant domestic markets.

No large financial institution in Japan attracts more doubts about its long-term sustainability than Daiwa, but as its CEO says: 'People on the outside don't know us.'

Mizuho 'intends to transition to the next generation of financial services' – here the bank's CEO explains what that means.

Japan's social environment is said to be transforming, and SMBC's CEO is determined that the bank will take the lead in those changes.

Squeezed by negative rates on one side and an ageing population on the other, Japan’s banks have never had it so tough. Euromoney examines their potential to break free from these constraints.

Local banks believe that reinventing wealth management will supply them with domestic growth in a dismal macro environment. But the challenge is that the bulk of assets are held by elderly people, who aren’t used to investment, aren’t used to paying for it and don’t care much about digital innovation.

MUFG's CEO believes the bank has 'to provide the opportunity to challenge and fail'.

A generation of bank-funded conglomerates is belatedly discovering corporate governance. The resulting divestment of non-core assets has private equity and foreign investment banks excited. Those that have stayed the course are well placed to benefit.

The purchase of Long-Term Credit Bank by JC Flowers and Ripplewood in 2000, creating Shinsei Bank, was a landmark for foreign participation in Japanese banking. Chris Flowers exited most of his holding this year and reflects on what he learned over two decades.

Japanese banks must go overseas to build sustainable profits, each in their own way. Nomura is streamlining global operations and applying itself in China; Daiwa wants to be a global mid-market M&A house; MUFG has bought Asean banks; Mizuho prefers organic growth; and SMBC is somewhere in between. Who’s ahead?

A few weeks before being appointed as its new CEO, Nomura's Kentaro Okuda outlined his vision for the firm to Euromoney.