Mizuho Financial Group‘s main banking arm reported a new system glitch on Thursday, causing a halt to some transactions just a month after regulators reprimanded Japan’s third-largest lender for a series of technical system failures.
The latest problem resulted from an error in system settings and affected automated teller machine and online banking operations for about an hour on Thursday afternoon, a Mizuho spokesperson said.
Mizuho’s technical problems this year came despite a $3.6 billion overhaul of its systems in 2019 and prompted a reprimand from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA).
The FSA said eight system glitches took place at Mizuho this year. In November, Mizuho said its chief executive, chairman and three other executives would resign over the system failures.
IT System Failures at Mizuho
“We deeply apologise for the inconvenience and concern we have caused to our customers and society by allowing IT system failures to occur repeatedly in a short period of time and by failing to adequately ensure thorough operations under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act of Japan,” the bank said in a December 17 statement in response to finance ministry criticisms.
The FSA, the country’s banking regulator, said in a statement the failures had “undermined the credibility of Japan’s bank settlement system”.
Tatsufumi Sakai, the CEO and Yasuhiro Sato, the chair, as well as the head of the main banking unit and executives in charge of the group’s systems and compliance, would step down by April to take responsibility for the glitches, the bank said.
Mizuho has not selected a new CEO and plans to leave the chairman post vacant.
- Reuters with additional editing by George Russell
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