TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s finance ministry on Friday ordered the banking arm of Mizuho Financial Group to take corrective measures over its breach of the country’s foreign exchange law and submit prevention measures by Dec. 17.
During one of its eight system failures this year, Mizuho failed to comply with anti-money laundering procedures necessary under the foreign exchange act in overseas remittances, despite Japan’s growing efforts against money-laundering.
The Japanese banking regulator, the Financial Services Agency, also issued a reprimand to the country’s third-largest lender over the series of system glitches.
The finance ministry decided to take the corrective action against Mizuho because as one of Japan’s three megabanks it is responsible for payment systems, although no evidence of illegal money remittances has been found.
The ministry in August announced a three-year action plan that included tighter supervision of financial institutions in response to a report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global financial crimes watchdog.
(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto, Makiko Yamazaki and Yuki Nitta; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)
