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Nomura’s chief executive officer has apologized and taken a voluntary pay cut after one of the company’s former wealth management employees was charged with murdering a client and attempting robbery.
Kentaro Okuda said, “I sincerely apologize for causing so much trouble and worry to the victims and many other people involved,” and he will take a 30% pay cut for three months.
“This incident should never happen to a financial institution that handles important assets and whose customers trust us and do business with us,” Okuda said at a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday. Nine senior managers at the bank, including the head of asset management, have also taken voluntary pay cuts.
The apology comes after one of the bank’s former wealth management employees was charged with attempted murder, robbery and arson for allegedly drugging an elderly couple and setting their house on fire in order to steal millions of yen in cash. It was done after.
A couple who are customers of a bank in Hiroshima survived the attempted attack in July. The former Nomura employee was indicted last month.
In a statement on Tuesday, the bank said, “The former bank employee joined Nomura Securities as a new graduate in April 2018,” and from April 2022, “he provided asset management advice to individual and corporate customers at the Hiroshima branch.” ” announced. He was dismissed on August 4th.
The bank also unveiled a series of measures to reassure customers after the violent incident. These include increased supervision of client home visits, review of employee evaluations, and increased monitoring and mandatory leave for wealth management employees.
“For the time being, managers will accompany employees when they visit customers at their homes or speak with customers on the phone during visiting hours,” the bank said in a statement.
Nomura is working to expand its wealth management business as a strategic priority to reduce dependence on volatile trading revenues. Banks and securities firms are preparing to take advantage of an expected shift in Japanese household assets from cash and deposits to high-yield investments as the country returns to a period of sustained inflation.
Like other Japanese financial institutions, Nomura has salespeople visit customers at their homes to promote sales.
Officials said the number of account closures due to the home visit scandal was very limited.
This is not the first voluntary pay cut Okuda has agreed to this year, as the scandal threatens to overshadow his strong performance, which included posting the highest profit in four years for the quarter ending September.
Mr. Okuda, along with other executives, received a two-month 20% voluntary suspension after Japanese banking regulators fined the bank 21.8 million yen ($143,000) for manipulating government bond futures. I agreed to a pay cut.
