Japan's Mizuho Financial Group on Tuesday posted a 17.2 percent rise in full-year net profit, despite a slow recovery in the global economy and tepid growth at home.
Mizuho, one of Japan's biggest banks, said its net profit came to 484.52 billion yen ($6.06 billion) for the fiscal year through March, up from 413.23 billion yen a year earlier, helped by an improvement in credit-related costs.
Revenue was flat at 2.72 trillion yen, with pre-tax profit coming in at 648.56 billion yen, up 10.2 percent year-on-year.
For the current fiscal year ending in March 2013, Mizuho said it expects net profit to rise to 500 billion yen.
"We expect income from customer groups to increase and continue our overall cost-reduction efforts to achieve the target level," the bank said in a statement.
Last year, Mizuho said it planned to merge its retail and corporate banking units by the end of the first half of fiscal 2013, which will mean several thousand job cuts.
It also aimed to cut the number of management personnel by around 20 percent.
The outline of the restructuring plan was decided as part of Mizuho's efforts to restore confidence among clients after a computer glitch led to a massive stall in business transfers and shut down its ATMs in March last year.
Source: AFP Asian Edition
