Press Conference by ASO Taro, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of State for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

(Friday, January 15, 2021, 11:15 am to 11:33 am)

[Questions and answers:]

Q.

Yesterday in Fukui Prefecture, Fukui Bank announced its intent to make Fukuho Bank a subsidiary. With the government now working to create an environment supportive of reorganizing among regional banks, what are your thoughts on this specific example of reorganizing moving forward?

A.

As you know and as I often say, this is a matter that concerns management decisions by a particular regional bank, so I must decline to make any comment concerning this matter on behalf of the Financial Services Agency. Speaking more generally about finance, however, Fukui Bank as a financial institution using its own business judgment and thinking about its own future is looking to assimilate the second-tier regional bank Fukuho Bank and make it an affiliate of Fukui Bank, thereby strengthening its own functions as a financial institution while at the same time providing support to and improving the value of companies through regional finance. It is extremely important that such efforts bring about improvements in the value of regional companies, and opinion has long been divided in this regard, with some saying that these go too far and others that they do not go far enough. In any case, the presence of sound financial institutions befitting their respective regions is a crucial factor in enabling regional companies to keep pushing ahead so, in this sense, this latest move may be a good idea if it proves helpful in that regard.