MUFG, Japan’s largest bank, had an excellent financial year in the 12 months to March 2024, setting new records for the group.

Japan is the first major market to put a regulatory environment around stablecoins into law.

The purchase of Home Credit’s businesses in the Philippines and Indonesia fits with a trend to seek growth outside Japan.

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

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.

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.

A successful international strategy offers relief from stagnant domestic markets.

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.

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

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.

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?

Here is a firm looking to make opportunities out of some tough trials.

Nobuyuki Hirano is the world’s most recognized and most respected Japanese banker – and the chief executive of MUFG is an articulate voice on the demographic challenges facing Japanese banking and society. He believes he has charted a path through those challenges and is an internationalist in outlook. His aim is to make MUFG the world’s most trusted financial institution. Can he succeed?

Cut in the teeth of the financial crisis, MUFG’s stake in Morgan Stanley might well be the best deal of the last 10 years. Much of the success is down to the strong personal relationship between the firms’ leaders.

With the acquisition of Indonesia’s Bank Danamon, MUFG has built a network of southeast Asia bank stakes to go with its presence in the US. Now comes the hard part: persuading them to work together. CFO Aki Tokunari explains MUFG’s international strategy.

There will be risks as well as rewards on the hunt for growth

As if European commercial and investment banks didn’t have enough problems already with their US competitors eating their lunch, now one of the world’s biggest balance sheets has taken a seat at the table.

Morgan Stanley’s joint venture with MUFG in Japan makes sense on paper, combining international reach with domestic Japanese corporate and retail strength. But cultural differences meant few gave it much of a chance when it was announced. Six years on, it is proving the doubters wrong. How?

Toshifumi Murata of Latin America for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) is confident of continued growth.

BTMU expands FX business outside Japan; Strong yen boosts Japanese M&A flow

The infamous term zombie bank, coined in 1987 by Ed Kane, a professor of finance at Boston College in Massachusetts, has almost been exclusively associated with the Japanese banking sector of the 1990s. That's all about to change.

Reluctant investors under pressure to buy, while bookrunners await fee bonanza; Analysts say extra capital will not solve banks’ inherent problems

Full merger plans become two subsidiaries; Alliance prevents sale of stake in MS for now.

Reluctant investors under pressure to buy, while bookrunners await fee bonanza; Analysts say extra capital will not solve banks’ inherent problems

Complex new arrangement splits venture in two; MUFG CEO says no sale of stake in MS for now .

Daiwa, Nikko split from commercial partners; Kirin/Suntory shows corporate Japan’s pragmatism

Lending opportunities open up for Japan’s banks

Relatively untroubled by sub-prime losses and well-endowed with deposits, Japan’s banks are still enthusiastic lenders. But the bulk of their advances are still domestic – sometimes to potentially shaky borrowers. Will they expand further in lending in international markets? Chris Wright reports.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group closed its $9 billion investment in Morgan Stanley on October 13, ending speculation that the deal might not go ahead. The terms of the deal were more favourable to the Japanese institution than had originally been agreed, reflecting Morgan Stanley’s troubles. Rather than spending $3 billion of the total on ordinary shares at $25.25 each and the rest on convertible preferred shares with a conversion price of $31.25, MUFG will get a total of $7.8 billion-worth of the convertible preferred shares converting at $25.25 and the remaining $1.2 billion in preferred shares. The new deal offers substantially more protection for MUFG on its investment since preferred shares offer a fixed yield and their holders rank above common equity owners.

Japan’s largest banks are mulling the possibility of more capital raising after the Nikkei 225 stock index plunged to a 26-year low and left them looking vulnerable. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the country’s largest bank, announced on October 27 that it will issue up to ¥600 billion in common shares and up to ¥390 billion in preferred. Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitimo Mitsui Financial Group have been reported by local media to be considering similar measures.