Mizuho, Lack of Justice

On its basis, there has been exclusive mind of Japanese businessmen, in which they see higher value in the benefit of a specific group they are affiliated to than in social responsibility as an individual constituent. Mizuho Bank admitted that it had been ignoring loan transactions with crime groups since 2010, despite of their declaration of prohibiting them as a corporate compliance. It had simple background. Bankers wanted to be benefitted as much as they could before they would be accused. Justice of Japanese businessmen is not to be responsible for the society, but loyalty for their bosses.

Following a governmental guideline for preventing corporations from being damaged by anti-social powers in 2007, private banks in Japan determined their own standards for excluding crime organizations, or yakuza, in which they would close the account of such kind of clients. While most banks squeezed the exits of money to those organizations, Mizuho alone had been loose on doing that.

Most money lent to crime organizations went out through a subsidiary non-bank financial firm, Orient Corporation, to which Mizuho must have been responsible for its management. When crime organizations took advantage of used-car loan of Orient, Mizuho left examinations for the loan to it. Since most managers of Orient were formerly affiliated to Mizuho, the check for Orient’s finance did not work well.

It sometimes happens that a manager of a subsidiary is former boss of an employee in charge of the examination in main body. If the employee had been promoted by the effort of the former boss, he would not take critical action against former boss’s inappropriate business. In this case, conspiracy in hiding anti-social finance may be established.

What was serious for Mizuho’s case should be that four consecutive board members in charge had been ignoring the finance for crime organizations. It is fair to say that the finance had been the decision of the top, although the bank insisted in innocence of the president. Behind that, there was a situation that the bank suffered from swollen money inside, accumulated by lack of borrowers. The bank must have been in a hardship to the extent that it could not be careful of its corporate compliance.

In most business community, a worker who is desperately loyal to his/her boss would be promoted. Businessmen/women bought as much food as they could at convenience stores in business district of Tokyo in the evening of the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred two years ago, leaving none for others, to show fidelity to their colleagues. Being Frisbee dog of his/her boss may be fun, but it’s not funny at all for others. It is just leaving bitter memories in a society as a whole.