A Message from the President & CEO of Mizuho Bank, Ltd.
Takashi Tsukamoto
President & CEO
Mizuho Bank, Ltd.
I would like to start my message with my deepest thanks to the international community, including our customers and relevant parties, for the support, assistance and warm encouraging messages following the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.
I would also like to take this opportunity to reiterate our deepest and sincerest apologies to all of our customers, our shareholders and to everyone who has experienced any inconvenience caused by the recent computer system failures of Mizuho Bank. With a strong resolution to prevent its recurrence, we will focus all of our energy to restore customer confidence while implementing improvement and response measures.
Becoming the Most Trusted Financial Institution
In May 2010, Mizuho announced "Mizuho's Transformation Program," which is aimed at enhancing its strengths in three areas; namely, "profitability," "financial base," and "front-line business capabilities." Since then, we at Mizuho Bank have focused our initiatives on increasing the satisfaction of individual customers as well as our customers among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and middle-market corporations and their senior management. In view of the recent computer system failures we experienced, we have renewed our awareness of the social responsibilities of financial institutions and the importance of our public mission. We have made an absolute commitment to regaining the trust and confidence of our customers and society as a whole.
First, in May 2010, we announced our "Actions to Restore Customer Confidence," a set of measures that calls for the thoroughgoing implementation of our "customer first policy." To put these measures into action, we believe that the most important course of action as a retail bank, barring none, is to direct our fullest capabilities and energy to the task of recovering customer confidence. Every member of the management and all officers and employees will always implement our "customer first policy" where we adopt a basic and unwavering stance of thinking and behaving from our customer's standpoint.
Second, as specific initiatives to put our "customer first policy" into action, we spare no effort to strengthen our front-line business capabilities.
Initial steps will include the unification of corporate planning and management units, the full integration of human resource management, and other measures to streamline and rationalize the corporate planning and management functions. The objectives of these steps will be to accelerate the deployment of staff to the marketing front-line to strengthen customer relationships and restore customer confidence.
Together with these measures, we will review the deployment of our staff and branch network based on market characteristics and improve the sophistication of our marketing skills responding to characteristics of each area and branch. We will also further evolve our usage of remote channels to develop system that can respond more appropriately to customers' actual needs. To fulfill our mission in society as a financial institution, we will first contribute to Japan's recovery from the earthquake disaster as we also devote our fullest efforts to provide a smooth supply of funds to customers.
By putting our "customer first policy" into action throughout our business and "strengthening front-line business capabilities," we will move toward our objective of becoming the "most trusted financial institution." Every member of the management and all officers and employees will work together as one in our persistent effort toward "transformation" and our focus on speedy results. We look forward to your continuing understanding and support.
July 2011
Takashi Tsukamoto
President & CEO
Mizuho Bank, Ltd.
