Hokuhoku Financial Group on Growth Beyond Borders

From Hokuriku Region and Japan's northern heartlands, Hokuhoku Financial Group, with Hokuriku Bank and Hokkaido Bank at its core, is driving regional renewal by uniting finance, technology, and community to spark sustainable growth across borders and generations.

- Daniel de Bomford, Anudari Erdenebulgan and Arthur Menkes

Where the mountains of the Hokuriku region meet the vast skies of Hokkaido, stand regions on the precipice of change. Once defined by snowbound winters and the steady rhythm of traditional industry, these regions are now stirring with a new kind of energy, like the first buds awakening in spring after a long frost.

At the heart of this change is Hokuhoku Financial Group, which is one of Japan's most dynamic regional banking groups. The group's core institution, Hokuriku Bank, can trace its origins back approximately 150 years, during the Meiji era, to a simple regional bank founded to serve the Hokuriku region. Now, it is the pulse beneath Japan's northern frontier, a network of businesses and communities moving together toward a renewal. Today, Japan emerges from a long economic frost of ultra-low interest rates and steps into what President Hiroshi Nakazawa calls "a world of interest." Hokuhoku Financial Group stands at the crossroads, ready to help bridge cities and countryside, finance and technology, and Japan and the world.

Navigating Japan's New World of Interest

In March 2024, Japan took a "turning point" after ending years of negative interest rates, as described by Nakazawa. For the first time in more than a decade, the nation's policy rates rose above zero. Even the modest 0.5 percent symbolized something massive, the thawing of decades of deflation and the spring of a new economic rhythm.

Nakazawa sees this as both an opportunity and a responsibility. "As long-term interest rates rise, lending rates also increase, which encourages more active lending rather than passive financing," he says. For regional banks like Hokuhoku Financial Group, the change brings a renewed vitality, more dynamic lending, portfolio innovation and fresh capital circulation across local economies.