Mizuho Financial Results Analysis | Why a Net Profit of 1.4 Trillion Yen is Within Reach | The 'Connecting Bank' That Cannot Be Explained by Interest Rates Alone
Banks make money when interest rates rise.
Looking at Mizuho in 2026, this explanation is half correct and half incomplete.
Net profit for the fiscal year ending March 2026 was 1.2486 trillion yen. It exceeded 1 trillion yen for the first time. The first quarter of the following fiscal year also saw 422.9 billion yen, an increase of approximately 46% compared to the same period last year.
In July, the full-year forecast was raised from 1.3 trillion yen to 1.4 trillion yen.
However, when looking at individual deposits, which are the foundation of a bank, a different picture emerges.
In fiscal year 2025, the number of new account openings increased by 26%. Monthly app users also grew by 13%. However, the increase in individual deposits remained at only 0.3 trillion yen.
Accounts increased.
The app was used.
Even so, the speed at which money is being gathered has not yet fully accelerated.
Why is the management team concerned about this?
In a world where interest rates have returned, deposits are not just account balances, but a funding base that supports a bank’s earning power.
On the other hand, what Mizuho is growing is not just the business of collecting deposits and lending them out.
Advising on company acquisitions. Providing funds. Issuing corporate bonds. Mitigating foreign exchange and interest rate risks. Supporting the assets of business owners and even the asset formation of employees.
Expanding transactions with a single company across banking, securities, trust, and asset management.
What Mizuho is promoting is a ‘connecting’ strategy.
Can it transform from a bank that benefits from the tailwind of interest rates into a financial group that supports the next actions of its customers?
If we are to think beyond 1.4 trillion yen, I want to start with this question this year.
Table of Contents
1. The reason three banks came together and the homework left after the integration 2. Who do banks receive payments from and for what? 3. 9.1 trillion yen in ordinary revenue, 3.5 trillion yen in gross profit. What generated the over 1 trillion yen? 4. When interest rates rise, the meaning of 175 trillion yen in deposits changes 5. What is wanted from the partnership with Rakuten beyond the number of cards 6. Generating revenue multiple times from a single acquisition case 7. After increasing functions with Greenhill, can they take market share next? 8. It is not just growth that Masahiro Kihara inherited 9. A net profit of 1.4 trillion yen and a PBR of 2x. The conditions in between 10. Checking the answers with the ‘5 numbers’ in next year’s full-year financial results
1. The reason three banks came together and the homework left after the integration
Banks were born between those who have money and those who need it.
They securely hold deposits, support settlements, and provide credit for corporate capital investment and household home purchases.
As industries grew, the need for funds and the scope of transactions expanded. In Japan, regional commercial banks and banks that supplied long-term industrial funds each played their respective roles.
Mizuho’s starting point was not a scene where a single founder came up with a new service.
It was the integration of three banks with different histories and customer bases: Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank, and the Industrial Bank of Japan.
A full integration agreement was signed in 1999, and Mizuho Holdings was launched in 2000. Banking operations were reorganized in 2002, and the current Mizuho Financial Group was established in 2003.
The background to this was the non-performing loan problem after the bubble burst, as well as financial liberalization and globalization.
The idea was to increase the scale of the bank and consolidate customer bases and financial functions. It was a vision to respond as a group to competition and funding demands that would be difficult to handle alone.
However, merging companies is different from connecting work into one.
Banks, securities, and trusts view customers differently. Information is also divided between domestic and overseas operations. The more complex systems and organizations become, the more likely it is that inconvenience will arise for customers.
Transforming the scale gained through integration into actual usable power. This task continues into the current ‘connecting’ strategy.