THE JAPAN NEWS



 

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Mizuho Financial Group Inc. President Tatsufumi Sakai has expressed his intention to accelerate the group’s efforts to keep pace with digitization in financial services, including steps on money settlements and transfers.

Mizuho will aim to improve its customer services by nurturing and strengthening human resources who will promote digitization.“We will be a group in which each worker can meet customer needs,” Sakai said.
Amid the spread of fintech, or financial services employing advanced information technologies, the financial sector faces a need to reform existing business models.

“We’ll steer ourselves to next-generation financial service models,” Sakai said, indicating that the group plans to operate more branches supporting digitization and offering financial services using artificial intelligence.

On human resources development, Mizuho will put into full use a system allowing workers to take leaves of absence to improve their skills, he said.

Mizuho will also aim to boost workers’ morale by unifying the hiring and treatment of career-track and noncareer workers and moving forward with creating a salary system reflecting job tasks.

Asked about charging maintenance fees for deposit accounts, as being considered by other major banks, Sakai said such fees would be compensation for service. But he quickly added that Mizuho will consider whether to introduce such charges in a “comprehensive” way, taking into account factors such as customer satisfaction levels.