Chapter 543 Collapse
Shirakawa Kaede chose Masamoto Yashiro as the head of Shirakawa Nagatoshi Bank because he was optimistic about his rich experience in restructuring in the banking industry.
When he first took over as president of Citibank's Neon branch, the consumer business he was responsible for was losing $30 million a year.
When he left a few years later, the business was generating $100 million in annual profits.
More importantly, he witnessed Citibank's successful escape from huge bad debts and near bankruptcy through a series of powerful restructuring measures.
Because of this experience, he was able to make firm and bold decisions at critical moments.
This is why Shirakawa Feng invited him to be the president of Shirakawa Nagashiki Bank. The former Citibank and the current Changyin Bank are very similar.
When asked by Shirakawa Kaede about the future plans for Shirakawa Nagashiki Bank, Yashiro was not vague and started with a series of drastic reforms.
“First of all, it is clear that Shirakawa Nagashiki Bank is based on commercial banking, and consumer retail banking is our future focus.
A large international bank cannot be supported solely by corporate investment banking loans.
It just so happens that the former Kitato Bank has a lot of experience in consumer business, so I plan to set up a new sales team and recruit a large number of women to participate. "
Although Yashiro is an international person, he knows that women control many financial decisions in this country.
Conducting banking sales business from their perspective will yield unexpected gains.
Baichuan Feng nodded in agreement to his unconventional approach without saying a word.
Don’t employ people you doubt, and don’t doubt people you employ.
Since Shirakawa Naganobu has been handed over to him, he should be given room to fully display his abilities.
Seeing that the big boss agreed with his policy, Yashiro became more confident.
"In addition, I intend to directly abolish the corporate planning department and abolish the original seniority system of Changyin Bank and replace it with a performance system."
As soon as these words were spoken, Ōnoki and Hirao felt a sense of fear.
It would be easier to abolish the enterprise planning department, but abolishing the seniority system...
The two main characteristics of Japan's traditional enterprises are the lifetime employment system and the seniority system.
Although they have certain flaws, they have enabled many companies to continue for hundreds of years.
Now, if one of them is directly abolished, and it is a bank like Changyin that originally had state-owned capital, what will Changyin’s former colleagues think...
However, before Oonoki and the others could think about it carefully, Shirakawa Kaede nodded and agreed without hesitation.
“Yes, Japan’s economy is already undergoing tremendous changes, and companies that cannot keep up with the changes will eventually be eliminated.
If any internal employees have opinions, there is no need to persuade them, just tell them directly, Shirakawa Nagatoshi Bank will survive the fittest. "
Baichuan Feng immediately expressed his support for Yashiro's approach. Does he really think he wants all those old antiques from Changyin?
If it weren't for the pressure from the Ministry of Finance, he would have laid off at least half of the original staff at Choshin Bank.
Because of the seniority system, many people have accumulated astonishing salaries despite having little ability.
It's just right that there are eight cities leading the way now. Those who are incapable should leave, and those who should retire should retire. This way, we can save a lot of personnel expenses.
With Baichuan Feng's support, Yashiro straightened his back a little more.
“In addition, I suggest that if you want Shirakawa Bank to grow into a qualified international bank.
Therefore, it is essential to hire foreign experts. Japan’s current banking system is too rigid and reform is imminent.”
No one had any objection to this. As people involved in the corruption of Japan's banking industry, they knew it better than anyone else.
"The transformation of the information system also needs to be carried out immediately."
It is hard to imagine that as a well-known large bank, many of the processes of China Everbright Bank were still executed manually.
Computers are not being put to use where they should be used, and disks are still being used on a large scale.
Please, CDs, hard drives, and SSDs have become widely used, and disks of a few megabytes should have been eliminated long ago.
"SSM can provide support for information technology transformation. If you have any needs, please contact them directly."
As a professional software company under Shirakawa Holdings, SSM has experience in customizing systems for many companies.
Of course, Yashiro had no objection to Shirakawa Kaede's suggestion.
Using one's own people can also save some money. Now is the time when Shirakawa Nagashiki Bank is tightening its belt, so every bit of savings counts.
"Our lending model also needs to undergo certain changes." Finally, Bacheng mentioned the bank's core business.
"Tell me in detail," Baichuan Feng motioned for him to speak freely.
“First, completely new risk control standards must be established and existing lenders must be reassessed.
When a loan does not meet the new standards, customers have three options.
1. Repay the loan.
2. Pay higher interest rates.
3. Provide better collateral.
If rejected, the loan will be rescinded or returned to the government.
To sum it up in one sentence, it means pointing a gun at the weak customer’s head.”
Tsk, this move is so cruel!
But Shirakawa Kaede likes it~
“Draft new risk control standards as soon as possible and then implement them according to this model.”
The first thing Baichuan Feng has to deal with is the 1.6 trillion non-performing assets. It is better for those real estate developers to go bankrupt than to let them survive.
If they go bankrupt, all the real estate under their names will belong to the Shirakawa Nagatoshi Bank.
Even the Shirakawa Nagatoshi Bank now owns a lot of real estate, including as many as sixteen commercial buildings alone.
Toranomon Building and Shiba Park Building belong to it, as well as Nokan's apartments and land, which can also be considered assets.
Shirakawa Kaede's initial plan was to entrust them to Shirakawa Real Estate for management.
Rent out what should be rented out, sell what should be sold, and if that doesn’t work, build your own apartment and rent it out.
The population of Tokyo will continue to increase in the future, so there will be no shortage of people renting houses.
It is preliminarily estimated that the rental income from these properties will definitely be higher than the interest on the loans.
In this case, they cannot be considered as non-performing assets, but rather as waste turned into treasure.
The merger of China Everbright Bank and Kitato Bank has achieved complementary business.
One specializes in business lending, the other specializes in consumer lending.
The combination of the two is expected to be on the right track in two years and achieve profitability in three years.
Losses in the past few years are inevitable. After all, Japan’s overall financial environment is currently experiencing a cold wave.
Less than half a year after the merger of Chang Hwa Bank and the establishment of Shirakawa Nagashin Bank, another bank disappeared in Japan.
This time it is real bankruptcy, not merger.
First of all, there are Hyogo Bank, Hanwa Bank, and Tokuyo City Bank, which are small local banks.
Because of their limited size, their ability to resist risks is much weaker than that of large banks.
So they were the first to fall, and then securities companies also began to go bankrupt.
The successive collapse of these small banks and bond companies acted like a fuse, causing the rapid collapse of Japan's financial industry.
Especially in 1994, Tokyo Kyowa Kyowa Credit Union and Security Credit Union.
After they provided excessive loans to the EIE Group, they faced a situation where they could not recover the loans and thus fell into bankruptcy crisis.
Regarding the handling of the problems of these two credit unions, the then-Bank of Japan President Yasushi Mieno issued a statement.
“It is not the job of the central bank to rescue all the failing financial institutions.”
As a result, the two credit unions went into bankruptcy.
Takahashi Oshinori, who abused his power to embezzle funds from two credit unions, was also arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department and sent to prison.
With the bankruptcy of these small and medium-sized financial institutions, the financial winter has officially arrived.
In order to cope with the increasing number of bankruptcies of small and medium-sized banks, the Ministry of Finance simply became a "clearing bank" with the purpose of protecting depositors.
During this period, the Banking Bureau of the Ministry of Finance also privately tested several large banks.
Ask them if they would be willing to fund the establishment of a receiving bank to handle problem banks.
But the big banks are very indifferent. They have a lot of problems of their own, so how can they have the time to fund these small banks?
Even the Shirakawa Bank was questioned by the Ministry of Finance, but Chang-Gin Bank had not yet digested it, so Shirakawa Feng had no energy to worry about other things.
Besides, they have evaluated these small banks in the eight cities and found that none of them are worth investing in.
According to an internal assessment by Shirakawa Nagatoshi Bank, this wave of small bank bankruptcies is likely to last for two years.
There will be a second wave in two years, and by then it may be the big banks that will be in trouble.
Seeing that the situation is not good, Congress has no choice but to prepare to spend money again after allocating 12 trillion special relief funds last time.
As the situation worsens, the previously estimated 50 trillion yuan in bad debts has become history, and this number may double.
The disastrous consequences of the financial tsunami are still raging, and ordinary people in Japan are increasingly feeling the chill.
As time entered 1994, a large number of companies suddenly began to lay off employees.
In recent years, not only has the financial industry been in chaos, but other industries have also gradually entered a state of depression.
In 1990, corporate sales were 14.28 trillion yen, and this year the figure is 14.85 trillion yen.
In other words, over the past four or five years, Japan's economy has basically stagnated.
No, to be precise, it should be a regression.
Because with the appreciation of the Japanese yen, corporate profits were 50 trillion in 1990, but this year they have become 35 trillion.
Operating profits have plummeted by 30% and the situation is even worsening, so major companies that are feeling the cold winter are cutting costs.
So let alone how many bonuses were given out in a year in the past, the subsidies are now pitifully small.
What’s worse is that many people can’t even keep their jobs. The scene where people would give away hundreds of thousands of yen to attract college students is gone forever.
After suffering a series of blows such as salary cuts, welfare cuts, layoffs, and job losses, people suddenly realized that the golden age was over.
Not only has the golden age ended for ordinary people, but it has also ended for businesses.
The DRAM chip business, which was once a source of pride for the entire Neon world, now has only a little more than 40% of the market share held by Neon companies.
Compared with the peak of more than 80%, it has been cut in half, and the situation is still getting worse.
But the irony is that America, which imposed sanctions on it, did not increase its market share, while South Korea, which had no sense of presence, quietly took over nearly 30% of the market share.
However, the depression had just begun, and the lost Heisei era had just begun.
