Mizuho Bank has another system failure
The bank says its corporate clients had trouble logging into its online e-banking platform for over 3-and-a-half hours in the morning.
The service handles money transfers, overseas remittances and foreign-exchange transactions.
Financial Services Minister Suzuki Shunichi responded by calling such system failures "extremely regrettable," and describing banks as key infrastructure.
His agency has repeatedly issued business improvement orders to Mizuho Bank and its parent, Mizuho Financial Group, over the system failures. The latest order, the fourth, was given in November after the bank suffered eight system glitches last year.
They included bank cards and passbooks getting stuck inside ATMs, with customers waiting several hours to get them back.
In other cases, over-the-counter transactions were suspended at branches across Japan.
The Financial Services Agency has called on the parent company and its group to pinpoint responsibility for the series of problems.
It asked for a concrete business improvement plan by Monday next week.
In a related development, Mizuho Financial Group President and CEO Sakai Tatsufumi is set to step down in April to take responsibility for the glitches.
The group's officials say Kihara Masahiro will be Sakai's successor. He is 56 and currently serves as managing executive officer at Mizuho Bank.
The officials say a final decision on his appointment will be made soon at a board meeting.
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