Japanese Banks Promoting Women to Executive Positions

June 14, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese banks, long dominated by men, are now increasingly appointing women to executive positions.

MUFG Bank, a unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., is set to promote Saiko Nanri, 49, head of its Corporate Communications Division, which is in charge of corporate brand strategy, to executive officer on June 27. She will be the second Japanese woman to hold the post at the megabank.

At rivals Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., several women each have already been promoted to executive positions.

Having built her career mainly in MUFG Bank's corporate service operations, Nanri has been seen early on as a candidate to be an executive, an official of the bank said.

A mother of two daughters, she was an original member of a working group set up at the bank in 2005 for the empowerment of women.

The Japanese government has set a goal of raising the proportion of women in leadership positions at companies and other entities to 30 pct by 2020. Banks have set their own numerical targets while focusing on child-rearing support.

Among the three Japanese megabanks, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui promoted women to executive officers for the first time in 2014.

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. <8411>, the parent of Mizuho Bank, plans to increase the proportion of women in managerial positions to 30 pct by July 2019 from 25 pct as of March this year.

"The number of female students who apply for career-track jobs at banks is small due to an image of multiple job relocations," said Fusako Takei, a senior researcher of major job information provider Disco Inc.

MUFG Bank will revamp its personnel system from fiscal 2019 so that career-track employees are allowed to choose whether to accept relocations to distant branches depending on their circumstances, including child-rearing and nursing care. Jiji Press