TOKYO: Banks in Japan will soon be able to set business hours that do not conform to the traditional 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., gaining leeway to tailor business models to the needs to customers in different regions. The Financial Services Agency will revise its implementation rules of banking laws as early as August to remove the restrictions.
Most banks, credit unions and other financial institutions here now must remain open for at least six hours a day, including the 9-to-3 window, to standardize times when payments can be made. Institutions can already stay open longer if they wish but must meet certain conditions if they also want to break free of the window and the six-hours requirement itself. These conditions exclude locations that handle business settlement accounts — and thus the majority of Japan’s roughly 13,000 bank branches. The FSA is doing away with this business-account exemption.
In areas where most customers bank in the afternoon, for example, branches could open at noon and run later into the evening. In residential areas, banks could cut weekday hours in favor of doing business at night and on holidays.
“We need locations in residential areas that stay open longer” to do business with the current generation, said Yasuhiro Sato, president of Mizuho Financial Group. Banks have also requested more flexibility in operating hours to cope with declining populations in more rural areas. Trimming hours at far-flung, little-used locations will let banks avoid closing those branches altogether.
