Awards for Excellence 2009: Japan

It was another miserable 12 months for Japan’s banks, with the three megabanks, the tier below them and the smaller regional banks all suffering as domestic bankruptcies from the plummeting economy caused NPL levels to rise and Lehman Brothers-related investments turned bad. Total losses from bad loans among the top banks amounted to ¥1.7 trillion ($17.6 billion) and the three largest financial groups – MUFG, Mizuho FG and SMFG – all reported heavy losses for the year. That left Resona Holdings, Euromoney’s best bank in Japan in 2007, as this year’s winner after the group posted a profit of ¥123 billion despite the hellish environment.