Japanese banks: Back from the dead

Japanese banks: Back from the dead "FALLS from grace don’t come any harder than that of Japan’s banks. In the late 1980s they were the biggest financial firms on the planet and picked up everything from California’s banking system to impressionist paintings. A decade later they were a global laughing stock, riddled with the bad debts that helped to cripple Japan’s economy and run by managers famed as world-class procrastinators.

After infamy came obscurity. Today most financial types have a view about Goldman Sachs. Few outside Japan bother even to learn the names of Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui or Mizuho, Japan’s three biggest banks. Such ignorance is unwise, not just because these firms are back on their feet (see article), but also because their experience holds lessons for both battered Western firms and the giant Chinese banks that are now at the top of the industry’s global league table."

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