Mitsubishi UFJ Financial will automate up to a third of its back office in a bid to concentrate its resources on more lucrative business.
Japanese banks have been slow to eliminate paper-based records compared with global peers, partly because many forms require customers’ personal ink stamps, the country's official method of identification, rather than signatures.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) identified the expensive administration procedures as a stumbling in its quest to focus on the lucrative business with its rich clients. The company therefore decided to use new financial technology – software robots and artificial intelligence – to automate administration that today requires 9,500 employees to process.
Going After Wealth
The bank hopes this will make resources available to better serve the bank's wealthier clients, said Kanetsugu Mike, chief executive of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. MUFG currently employs 2,600 bankers only to serve the 1.2 million clients with assets of more than 100 million yen, Mike said.
MUFG launched a stand alone fintech unit on October 1 to work with 32 regional banks across Japan. The new firm, known as «Japan Digital Design», started with capital of 3 billion yen, put up in full by Mitsubishi UFJ.
