Mitsubishi UFJ Announces Hanzawa as Next President

Tokyo, Dec. 16 (Jiji Press)–Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. announced Tuesday that Junichi Hanzawa, currently president of MUFG Bank, will succeed Hironori Kamezawa as president of the group next spring. The appointment will take effect on April 1, marking the first leadership change at the group in six years and at the banking unit in five years. The group aims to achieve further growth by renewing its leadership. “We will continue to take on challenges to build a strong financial services group that opens up the future,” Hanzawa, 60, said at a press conference on Tuesday. Masakazu Osawa, 57, senior managing executive officer at MUFG Bank, will become the bank’s next president, while Kamezawa, 64, will step aside to become the group’s chairman. Hiroyuki Seki, 57, deputy president of the bank, will be appointed as president of Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co. and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. The group initially planned to decide on its new leadership at the end of last year, but it postponed the decision due to a high-profile safe deposit box theft case involving a former bank employee. Hanzawa, Osawa and Seki, began their careers at Mitsubishi Bank, one of the predecessor of MUFG Bank, as did Kamezawa. Hanzawa has long worked in the corporate planning division and became president of the bank in April 2021. Osawa has held key positions in divisions regarding the digital field in addition to corporate planning. He has extensive international experience and is currently head of a division handling large corporate clients. As competition among banks for customer deposits intensifies, the full-scale development of “M-tto,” a new brand of comprehensive digital financial services for retail customers launched in June, will be a key challenge. Kamezawa became president of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in April 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He had not previously served as MUFG Bank president. He promoted structural reforms such as the sale of U.S. affiliate MUFG Union Bank to a major U.S. financial company. Backed by improved profit margins thanks to rising interest rates, Kamezawa led the group to achieve a consolidated net profit of over 1.8 trillion yen for the first time last fiscal year. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]