TOKYO -- Mizuho Financial Group, Japan's third-largest banking group by assets, suffered yet another system crash on Friday, dealing a further blow to a company trying to restore confidence after a string of similar failures this year.
A system breakdown halted deposits and other transactions at teller windows in roughly 450 Mizuho Bank branches across Japan on Friday morning. Mizuho Trust & Banking locations also were affected.
Though service was mostly restored by the afternoon, customers were disgruntled by Mizuho Bank's fifth crash so far this year, which coincided with one of the busiest days of the month for bank transactions.
"I'm losing trust in the bank because of repeated problems like this," said one customer who visited a branch Friday morning.
The latest crash also shocked Japan's Financial Services Agency, which was already weighing administrative action against the bank.
"This trouble hit just as the inspection was wrapping up, so there is going to be an inevitable impact," said an official who requested anonymity.
Mizuho's woes this year started on Feb. 28, when its ATMs began eating bank cards after a system update. Over 70% of the company's machines in Japan were knocked out at one point. Three more breakdowns that interrupted transactions followed in March.
This time, ATMs were not affected. The company said it is investigating what triggered the latest breakdown, in which the link was disrupted between the main accounts system and retail terminals, as well as why backups failed to function. The direct cause of this year's breakdowns has been different in each case, according to Mizuho.
Mizuho's handling of the latest crash has come under fire as well. Though the failure occurred around 9 p.m. Thursday, the bank did not notify customers until 8:30 a.m. Friday, when it became clear that service could not be restored before branches reopened.
"We need to reflect on whether notifying customers 30 minutes before opening was appropriate," Koji Fujiwara, president and CEO of Mizuho Bank, told a news conference Friday.
Tatsufumi Sakai, Mizuho Financial Group's president and CEO, said the group will review its safeguards against similar breakdowns following Friday's crash.
"We take very seriously the fact that this occurred while we were working to prevent a reoccurrence of such problems," Sakai said.
Sakai took a six-month pay cut in June over the series of crashes.
An expert report commissioned by Mizuho Financial blamed organizational weaknesses for the failures, and the group announced a prevention plan in June. It includes a comprehensive inspection of the core "Minori" banking system and equipment by the end of December, as well as the creation of cross-departmental mechanisms to minimize customer disruptions should another failure occur.
The Financial Services Agency plans to conduct additional hearings regarding the latest incident, particularly on why it took so long to fix the problem, according to officials.