THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
August 20, 2021 at 16:30 JST
Mizuho Bank has been hit by yet another serious computer glitch that disrupted services, and strained the patience of customers and the government regulatory agency overseeing banks.
Bank officials announced that the problem disrupted deposits and money transfers for customers who visited bank counters at about 460 branches nationwide.
The bank said the system failure was mostly solved by around 9:50 a.m.
The latest incident marks the fifth computer glitch to dog Mizuho Bank this year.
Among those most shocked by the latest development are officials of the Financial Services Agency, who were considering taking administrative action against Mizuho Bank over its previous computer problems from earlier this year.
“There is a feeling of, ‘Not Mizuho again,’” one high-ranking agency official said. “What is most shocking is that its computer system was thoroughly inspected after April and it should have been strengthened out.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato expressed concern about the latest incident at his Aug. 20 news conference.
“It is extremely regrettable that trust in a financial institution has been greatly damaged,” he said.
Kato pointed to the four previous computer glitches that occurred between February and March, and the huge effect they had on individual and corporate customers.
According to Mizuho Bank officials, they realized equipment used for branch operations began experiencing issues on the evening of Aug. 19. The glitch also affected about 60 branches of Mizuho Trust & Banking, which uses the same computer system.
The two banks asked customers to use ATMs or internet banking services, but that inconvenienced some customers because of the limits that ATMs place on transaction amounts. Ironically, the ATMs were the source of past computer glitches, in which the machines gobbled up customers’ bank cards.
As a result of the spring service disruptions, 11 executives at Mizuho Financial Group Inc. took pay cuts, including Tatsufumi Sakai, president of the group, and Koji Fujiwara, chief executive of Mizuho Bank.
At a news conference in June announcing those measures, the bank executives pledged to prevent a recurrence.
Just two months later, on Aug. 20, Mizuho Bank released a statement apologizing to customers for the major inconvenience it caused customers.
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