Assets of financial institutions in Japan 2013-2022
In 2022, the total financial assets of financial institutions in Japan amounted to almost 36.7 trillion U.S. dollars, an increase from close to 36.4 trillion dollars the previous year.
Banks in Japan
Banks accounted for the largest share of the total assets of financial institutions that year. In Japan, banks are broadly divided into city banks, trust banks, first and second-tier regional banks, foreign banks, and other banks. Although there is no legal basis for this categorization, it is widely used.
The largest banks in Japan are city banks: MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mizuho Bank, and Resona Bank. City banks are headquartered in the leading metropolises and have branches all over Japan and abroad. Next to providing banking services to individual clients, they deal with large corporations and high net worth individuals.
Regional banks
Unlike the city banks that operate nationwide and have a large network, regional banks focus on a single prefecture or region. They have close ties to local governments and support locals and small and medium-sized companies in their area. There are around one hundred different first and second-tier regional banks in Japan. As there are concerns about whether the large number of regional banks in Japan can operate profitably in the future, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has created incentives to encourage mergers of different regional banks.