Japan – the view from the top: Tatsufumi Sakai, Mizuho

JAPAN FOCUS

Crunch time for banks Wealth managers face a problem for the ages Five approaches to taking on the world Seiji Nakata, Daiwa Tatsufumi Sakai, Mizuho Kanetsugu Mike, MUFG Kentaro Okuda, Nomura Jun Ohta, SMBC Flowers’ 20-year journey in and out of Shinsei Governance brings an M&A bounty

“We are faced with three megatrends,” says Tatsufumi Sakai, president and group chief executive of Mizuho. “One is data, one is the shrinking population and ageing society, and the third is globalization.”

When Japanese banks want to show they mean business in the face of a challenge, they typically do so by proudly announcing a longer plan than the previous one.