Mizuho hit by 4th glitch in 2 weeks
14 March, 2021
Mizuho Lender suffered its fourth program glitch in fourteen days Friday, dealing a serious blow to the administration of 1 of Japan's best banks which has a history of troubling customers with complex problems.
The latest glitch damaged foreign currency-denominated remittances for corporate customers in the country. Around 300 transactions were delayed for approximately four to five hours due to hardware difficulties that occurred at 11:40 p.m. on Thursday at its info center, the machine of Mizuho Financial Group Inc explained.
The glitch in addition has influenced overseas remittances, but details are still being investigated, the lender said, adding both issues were resolved by 7:45 p.m. Friday.
"We take it extremely seriously that issues have occurred in quick succession and sincerely apologize," Mizuho Bank President Koji Fujiwara said at an urgently arranged press conference.
On Feb 28, Mizuho suffered a glitch that damaged over 4,300 automated teller machines nationwide, while 5,244 bank cards and books were stuck inside the devices rather than returned to their owners. Its systems were overwhelmed when updating the status of fixed deposit accounts and digesting other transactions.
Most of its ATMs were back again ready to go by the very next day.
The incident was followed by minor trouble on March 3 and last Sunday, sparking criticism from its customers and the country's financial authorities while pressure grew on Fujiwara to take responsibility by stepping down.
The Financial Offerings Agency has ordered Mizuho Lender to report the facts of the incidents.
Friday's issues, Fujiwara said, does not have any relations with before glitches.
The megabank started running its current system in July 2019 after spending about 400 billion yen ($3.7 billion) to build up it following large-scale system glitches in April 2002 and March 2011.
Source: japantoday.com