Faced with a sluggish local banking sector, a huge stimulus programme that is squeezing net interest income without reinstating self-belief in the economy, and two-decade long deflation, Japanese banks have shown mixed results in 2015’s Top 1000 World Banks ranking. Performance in annual growth in asset and Tier 1 capital bases is poor. Assets have dropped on average by 9.5% and Tier 1 capital has dropped by 9.12%. Even pre-tax profits, which in 2014 had a year-on-year aggregate growth of 11%, have dropped by 3% on average.
The top bank in the country ranking – Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group – retains the top position this year, with a slight increase in Tier 1 capital from $117.2bn to $117.6bn after it had dropped by 1.6% in the 2014 ranking. Its pre-tax profits, however, dropped by a notable 10.89% to $13.4bn.
