Retail Business：The Norinchukin Bank

Providing a range of financial functions as a member of JA Bank and JF Marine Bank

Business Overview

JA Bank and JF Marine Bank

JA and JF are independent financial institutions providing financial services finely tuned to the varying requirements of different regions, individual members and users throughout Japan. To provide these retail services more efficiently and effectively, the Bank at the national level works together with JA Shinnoren and JF Shigyoren at the prefectural level to operate integrated businesses in the form of JA Bank and JF Marine Bank.
JA Bank not only provides agricultural loans and other financial support for production activity but also offers appropriate financial products and services tailored to customers’ life events, such as starting work, getting married, buying a house and retiring, and supports stable financial asset building and management. We call these services the “life-plan support business,” through which JA Bank provides mutual fund and will trust services, as well as various financial services such as savings, settlements and housing loans. Incorporating services provided by other businesses operated by JA (such as guidance, economic and mutual assistance services) enables us to serve customers of all ages in a way that only a comprehensive service provider can.
We are also strengthening and expanding our non-face-to-face transaction channels by enhancing the functions of JA online banking and the JA Bank app. In addition, we are restructuring our face-to-face transaction channels via, for example, full-service branches staffed by specialists and client-relationship managers and Yorisoi Plaza facilities that strengthen points of contact with users while increasing the Bank’s efficiency.
JF Marine Bank leverages its expertise as a financial institution specializing in the fishery industry and also provides lifestyle support loans and business succession consultations to help customers manage life events, thereby supporting the lives of people and areas dependent on the fishery industry.

JA Bank and JF Marine Bank by numbers

The Norinchukin Bank’s role in the Retail Business

The Norinchukin Bank plays a role as the nationwide headquarters for the business conducted by JA Bank and JF Marine Bank.
In addition to strategizing and planning products and services for JA Bank and JF Marine Bank, the Bank works with them to determine how best to market these products and services to members and users. We have determined JA Bank Medium-Term Strategies (fiscal 2022-24) and JF Marine Bank Medium-Term Strategies (fiscal 2024-26) as overarching nationwide strategy. Strategies tailored to the requirements of individual prefectures and to those of individual JAs and JFs are then devised and implemented based on these.
The Bank also provides the digital infrastructure and unified administrative procedures that JAs and JFs use nationwide. We coordinate a range of requirements from the provision of a settlements network to ensuring regulatory compliance.
The issues that individual JA and JF institutions encounter vary, including by region. We are currently encouraging and supporting individual JAs and JFs in clarifying their optimal management strategies, while respecting their autonomy. The Bank also provides the requisite management guidance and support to individual JA and JF institutions based on the JA Bank Basic Policy and JF Marine Bank Basic Policy in order to ensure the stability and soundness of the JA Bank System and JF Marine Bank System.

The Retail Business in Our Medium-Term Vision

The business environment in 2030 (Retail Business)

We see a growing need for further operational efficiency enhancement and business transformation amid change in the conditions underlying JA’s and JF’s businesses, including the shrinkage and ageing of the Japanese population.
Migration from rural to urban areas is gathering pace. The value and expectations society places on JA and JF institutions as full-service providers key to regional economies and infrastructure is increasing as concern about primary industries grows and other industries enter the scene.
We are transitioning to a world in which all generations utilize lower-cost non-face-to-face channels for simple financial transactions as a result of rapid advances in digital services. The desire to consult a trusted financial institution strongly rooted in its local community, particularly regarding asset management, remains high, however. The ability to provide expert face-to-face advice could be a source of competitiveness for a financial institution.

Concept for Achieving Our Vision for 2030

The Bank has a tight focus on the uses of digital data in, for example, the provision of business support, and aims thereby to improve credit business efficiency and to provide advanced services to users.
In order to maintain our business base, we must provide the kind of value that encourages users to choose our services as well as utilize digital technology that appeals to a broad customer base. We aim to achieve this by improving the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of our non-face-to-face channels, including via partnerships with other businesses.
We will double down on current initiatives to enhance JA and JF management and their ability to propose solutions to users.

Main Initiatives

Initiatives relating to the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake

Support for JA Bank and JF Marine Bank users affected by the earthquake
Disaster support desk, emergency savings account payments

JA Bank and JF Marine Bank have been working to provide support to users affected by the earthquake by swiftly setting up a disaster support desk and promoting user awareness about the type of financial support available. In addition to establishing disaster relief funds to quickly respond to the recovery funding needs of those affected by the disaster, they have also provided support to existing loan users regarding the use of the natural disaster guidelines and loan forbearance.
As an emergency measure, JA Bank allowed JA users in Ishikawa Prefecture to withdraw savings at any JA nationwide without presenting their passbook or registered signature stamp, while JF Marine Bank did the same for users within the JF East Japan Shingyoren service area. JA Bank pulled together to provide financial services tailored to the support of earthquake victims as a single integrated entity, for example allowing them to notify losses and apply for the reissue of passbooks and cash cards, as well as withdraw savings, at other JAs. There have been more than 2,000 such requests as of the end of March 2024.

Dispatch of mobile branch vehicles

JA Bank has been using mobile branch vehicles since fiscal 2016 with the aim of providing financial services that connect agricultural and regional users, and thereby contribute to local communities. A total of 138 of these vehicles were in service by the end of March 2024.
A JA that cannot conduct business as a result of damage sustained in a natural disaster can request support from a mobile branch, which is dispatched after investigations as to which area is best placed to send one. After the Noto earthquake, a vehicle was dispatched from JA Kamiina in Nagano Prefecture to JA Noto in Ishikawa Prefecture, some of whose branches were unable to operate for this reason, to provide financial services to their users.

Non-face-to-face service initiatives

Improving JA Bank app user satisfaction

JA Bank launched the JA Bank app in December 2019. This is now widely used, with around 2.7 million downloads by the end of fiscal 2023. Because older users make up a large proportion of JA Bank’s user base, the JA Bank app is designed for a simple user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), making it easy and intuitive for anyone to use. It won a Good Design Award in 2021.
With the world rapidly shifting to digital interactions, JA Bank recognizes the importance of providing virtual services with high user satisfaction. It sees the app and other non-face-to-face channels as new points of contact with users, and will continue to work to improve user satisfaction by adding and expanding functionality.

Initiatives to strengthen proposal-making that puts customer interest first

Asset Building Support Program to strengthen proposal-making

JA Bank introduced an Asset Building Support Program in fiscal 2018 in order to strengthen its ability to propose solutions to users. Under this program, the Bank seconds employees to JAs so that they can learn how to make proposals aligned with users’ asset building and asset management needs by, for example, accompanying JA employees on visits to users.
Our fiduciary duty to customers (business guided solely by the interests of the customer) requires that we recommend a package of products and services based on a thorough understanding of a user’s needs, rather than selling particular individual products.