Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (MHFG) and Mizuho Bank, Ltd. (MHBK) take very seriously and deeply regret the recent receipt of a business improvement order from the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA). We would like to express deepest and most sincere apologies to our customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders for any concern or inconvenience this may have caused.
We had previously announced that we had launched designated committees to investigate this matter within MHFG and MHBK. In the process of ongoing investigations by these committees, we have discovered a partial discrepancy between our announcement regarding the administrative order and the actual status, and would like to take this opportunity to share the findings.
Specifically, we announced that information regarding the existence of transactions with anti–social elements in relation to a portion of certain joint loans had been reported no higher than to the MHBK executive officer in charge; however, the investigations have discovered that a certain level of this information had been reported to the senior executives of MHBK.
Further, reference to status regarding cancelling joint loan transactions with anti–social elements was included in reports submitted from MHBK Compliance Committee to MHFG Compliance Committee and Board of Directors between June 2011 and January 2012.
We will continue investigations by the designated committees and the third–party committee, established today. We will also steadily implement robust improvement measures to address the business improvement order and also take actions to strengthen and enhance internal control.