The Bank of the Ryukyus, Ltd. (株式会社琉球銀行)

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This entry sits under regional-banks INDEX. Read it against Okinawa FG for peer / contrast context and banking index for the broader system / regulatory boundary.

TL;DR

The No. 2 regional bank within Okinawa Prefecture (a scale second to the Bank of Okinawa under okinawa-fg). Established 1948-05-01 under the leadership of the US military government, it initially served both as the central bank and a commercial bank of the Ryukyu Islands — an extremely rare origin. With Okinawa’s reversion to the mainland in 1972-05 , it became an ordinary bank and listed on the TSE the same year (now PRIME 8399). Its abbreviation is “Ryugin”. It maintains a structure across all of Okinawa Prefecture + major mainland cities + overseas representative offices. It is closely tied to Okinawa’s distinctive operating environment of the tourism industry, the US-military-base economy, and remote-island finance. Unlike other mega-banks and regional banks, it maintains a standalone bank not converted to a holding company.

1. Company overview

Legal name: The Bank of the Ryukyus, Ltd. (株式会社琉球銀行) English name: The Bank of The Ryukyus, Limited Securities code: TSE PRIME 8399 Established: 1948-05-01 (established under USCAR Ordinance No. 第 1 号 “Ordinance Concerning the Establishment of the Bank of the Ryukyus”) Head office: Kumoji, Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture 1-11-1 Form: A standalone listed bank (not converted to a holding company, not adopting the FG structure adopted by many mega-banks and major regional banks)

The special nature of its establishment

The Bank of the Ryukyus has an origin greatly different from that of an ordinary private bank:

Established by an ordinance of the US military government (USCAR / United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands)
Initial functions: commercial-banking business + central-banking business (currency issuance / bank supervision) held concurrently
1948 At the time, the Ryukyu Islands were in a currency-transition period from B-yen → US-military-issued military scrip → US dollars, and the Bank of the Ryukyus effectively played the role of the “BOJ of the Ryukyus”
1972-05-15 With Okinawa’s reversion to the mainland, the central-banking function was transferred to the Bank of Japan Naha Branch, and the Bank of the Ryukyus became an ordinary bank

Due to this historical background, the presence and symbolism of the Bank of the Ryukyus within Okinawa Prefecture carry a unique weight that cannot be compared with mainland regional banks.

Major subsidiaries / affiliated companies (overview)

Bank of the Ryukyus (standalone listed 8399)
  ├── Ryugin Business Service (back-office outsourcing / within the head office)
  ├── Ryugin JCB (credit cards, JCB partnership)
  ├── Ryugin DC (credit cards, Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS-affiliated DC partnership)
  ├── Ryugin Research Institute (an Okinawa economic think tank, among the leading in the prefecture)
  ├── Ryugin Lease (leasing)
  ├── Ryugin Guarantee (credit guarantee)
  └── Affiliates: in-prefecture venture investments / regional PE fund investments, etc.

The think-tank subsidiary “Ryugin Research Institute” is one of the main publishers of economic statistics / tourism statistics within Okinawa Prefecture.

2. Business segment map

Segment	Characteristics
Individual deposits / loans	No. 2 in-prefecture share, centered on mortgages
SME lending	Thick exposure to the tourism industry / lodging / wholesale-retail
Tourism-focused lending	For resort development / hotel construction / tourism-related operators
US-military-base economy	Deposit accounts for service members / military civilian employees / base-related operators, US-dollar-denominated products
Remote-island finance	An in-prefecture remote-island branch network such as Miyako, Yaeyama, Kumejima, community-life finance
Syndicated loans	Coordination or competition with the Bank of Okinawa on large in-prefecture deals
Public funds / local governments	Designated-financial-institution business for Okinawa Prefecture, Naha City, etc.
International business	Hong Kong representative office (as of 2024 ) / mainland major-city branches / trade support for Asia
Cards / settlement	Ryugin JCB / DC, participation in the regional QR settlement “OKIPay”, etc.
Think tank	Ryugin Research Institute (a main source of in-prefecture economic forecasts)

Medium-term management plan (latest)

Executing a medium-term plan that began in 2024
Priorities: V-shaped tourism-industry recovery response (post-COVID tourism revival), in-prefecture DX support, maintaining remote-island finance, sustainability (decarbonization / offshore wind and other Okinawa projects)
Human capital: maintaining in-prefecture employment and two-way mobility of mainland / Asia talent

Competitive structure (within Okinawa Prefecture)

Bank	Parent	Positioning
Bank of Okinawa (8369)	under okinawa-fg	The No. 1 in-prefecture regional bank, holding-company conversion 2021-10 (Okinawa Financial Group)
Bank of the Ryukyus (8399)	standalone listed	No. 2 in-prefecture, maintaining a standalone bank
**[[regional-banks/okinawa-kaiho-bank	沖縄海邦銀行]]** (8390)	standalone listed
Koza Shinkin Bank / Okinawa Prefecture Labor Bank / JA Bank Okinawa, etc.	-	Regional cooperative-organization finance

→ The “in-prefecture two-strong structure of the Bank of Okinawa and the Bank of the Ryukyus” has continued for many years. Both banks’ head offices are in close proximity within Naha City. They divide / compete on local-government designated funds and large tourism deals. The second regional bank, Kaiho Bank, has a large gap in scale, and its challenge to the two strong banks is limited.

Linkage with the Okinawa economy

The Bank of the Ryukyus’s earnings are strongly linked to the following elements of the Okinawa-Prefecture economy:

Number of tourists (inbound + domestic) — hotel / resort lending / deposits-and-loans of related operators
US-military-related spending (base grants + personal consumption of US service members in Japan) — an important component of in-prefecture GDP
Public investment (Okinawa promotion budget) — lending to general contractors / construction
Remote-island population / economy — the population decline / aging of the prefecture’s remote islands is a structural risk
Okinawa-Prefecture population (unlike the mainland, it long had natural increase, but in recent years the birth rate has tended to decline)

Partnerships / cooperation with other banks

Wide-area regional-bank network: Member of the Regional Banks Association of Japan, mutual-ATM partnerships with mainland regional banks
Toward Asia: Hong Kong representative office, correspondent relationships with Taiwanese / Southeast Asian transaction banks
Relationship with mega-banks: A coordination / credit-complementing relationship with the megas 3 行 (mufg · smfg · mizuho-fg)
Digital: A regional-bank-joint-center-type core system (using NTT Data’s regional-bank joint center; ※ details should be checked against IR)

4. Regulation / policy

Supervision: Financial Services Agency (FSA)
Regional supervision: Okinawa Finance Office of the Fukuoka Local Finance Branch Bureau
Special regulation:
- Financial-preference systems tied to the Okinawa Promotion Special Measures Act (Okinawa-type designated duty-free shops / economic-special-zone-related)
- Coordination with the Okinawa Prefecture Credit Guarantee Corporation
International: Compliance with US sanctions laws (OFAC) regarding US-military-related transactions / holding of US-dollar-denominated accounts
Recent policy issues:
- 2024〜 BOJ rate hikes → recovery of deposit margins is a tailwind for regional banks overall
- V-shaped recovery of the Okinawa-Prefecture tourism population → improvement in the asset quality of tourism lending
- Remote-island population decline → branch consolidation/closure / the cost of maintaining ATMs
- Medium-to-long-term trends in the Okinawa promotion budget (review of promotion measures after the 50 th anniversary of reversion to the mainland)

okinawa-fg — the largest in-prefecture rival / parent of the Bank of Okinawa
The Okinawa Kaiho Bank, Ltd. (the in-prefecture second regional bank)
mufg · smfg · mizuho-fg — the megas 3 行 (credit-complementing / correspondent relationships)
The group of member banks of the Regional Banks Association of Japan

Sources

Wikipedia: 琉球銀行（公開項目）
琉球銀行公式サイト（沿革・店舗網・IR）
琉球銀行有価証券報告書 / 決算短信（公開分）
沖縄県金融業界一般公開情報・沖縄県統計
りゅうぎん総合研究所公表レポート

[!info] Verification status confidence: likely. Based only on public items / official IR / general Okinawa-Prefecture financial-industry information. The establishment background (US-military-government ordinance / central-banking function) is established as historical fact. The accurate values of recent earnings figures / subsidiary-shareholding ratios should be checked against the latest annual securities report.