Thank you very much for your continued patronage of the Chugoku Bank Group. My name is Sadanori Kato, and I have been appointed as the first president of the Chugin Financial Group. On the occasion of my appointment, I would like to share a few words.
Since its establishment in 1930, the Chugoku Bank Group has developed in step with regional society. This year, the group has embodied this in the corporate vision to, “Create with our community, customers, and employees a rich future that we can all share” and it is my hope that we continue to advance and grow together with our customers, community, and employees.
There are, however, numerous rapidly evolving environmental and societal issues affecting our regional society nowadays. Factors such as the shrinking working population and associated shortages of business successors and workers, the accelerating digital transformation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, etc., and the international response to global environmental issues are already posing complex and diverse challenges for customers and society in our region. We expect these trends to strengthen heading forward.
At the Chugoku Bank Group, we believe that we need to have a system that will allow us to “build a bright future” sustainably and so have moved to a holding company structure amid this environment of dramatic change in the complexity and diversity of needs. Specifically, the holding company structure was developed with the following three main goals in mind, and I am convinced these will help us to truly ‘build a bright future’ together.
- Expanding business channels
Based on a market-needs-oriented (customer-focused) approach, we are developing our capabilities to provide a broad range of truly needed solutions to issues faced by the region and our customers. With the involvement of the group overall, which goes beyond the framework of pure “finance”, we will meet the diverse needs of the region and our customers by broadening and deepening our offerings of solutions.
Expanding business channels also offers employees opportunities to grow as they challenge themselves in new business, and makes it possible to provide a range of domains for them to be active in commensurate with their individual capabilities and knowledge. - Appropriate allocation of management resources
At the holding company, we will formulate business strategies and allocate human resources with greater consideration of group-wide implications than before. By implementing business strategies and human resource allocation right across the group, we can identify in a timely manner the fields in which there are pressing needs in the community (growth fields or those that meet the current needs of the community) and move quickly to focus group-wide human resources strategically in these fields. Allocating management resources carefully in this way helps us both achieve sustained growth and continue providing a valuable service for our customers and the region. - Advancing group governance
By making the respective roles of the holding company and the operating company clear, we aim to develop a governance system with a healthy balance between oversight by the holding company and the independence of each operating company. Specifically, on the basis of the holding company’s business strategy, we are working to build a system that enables timely decision-making without the operating company missing out on revenue opportunities, and will build a group-wide risk management system that will make such a decision-making system possible.
The Chugoku Bank Group is in the process of recreating itself from a “general financial services business” into a “general services business centered around finance” in order to “Create with our community, customers, and employees a rich future that we can all share”. I am convinced that these endeavors of the Chugoku Bank Group will unlock a great deal of value for you all, so please continue your patronage and support as always.
Sadanori Kato
President