Suruga Bank
On this page
- Wiki route
- TL;DR
- 1. Company overview
- Major shareholders (recent / public basis)
- Key chronology
- 2. Business segment map
- Strategy of the trust-recovery phase
- Competitive relations
- Alliance / acquisition strategy
- 4. Regulation and policy
- 5. Major incident: the share-house “Kabocha no Basha” fraudulent lending ★
- Structure of the incident
- Resolution developments
- Impact on the industry
- Related
- Sources
Wiki route
This entry sits under regional-banks INDEX. Read it against Fukuoka FG (FFG) for peer / contrast context and banking index for the broader system / regulatory boundary.
TL;DR
A mid-sized regional bank based in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture (Numazu). Founded as Negata Bank in 1895 年, with a history of 130 years. From the 1990 年s to the 2010 年s it boasted high ROE as “the honor student of personal-loan-specialized regional banks”, but its reputation changed completely with the 2018 年 fraudulent-lending scandal for the share-house “Kabocha no Basha”. In over 1 兆円 of lending to individual investors, document falsification and screening fraud were carried out systematically, leading to an FSA business-improvement order and the en-masse resignation of the management. Since 2020 年 it has been in a trust-recovery phase centered on its capital and business alliance with au Financial Holdings (au-FH). It competes structurally with shizuoka-fg, the in-prefecture No. 1 .
1. Company overview
Formal name: Suruga Bank Ltd. English name: Suruga Bank Ltd. Securities code: TSE PRIME 8358 Founded: 1895-10-01 (former Negata Bank as Suntō District, Shizuoka Prefecture) Established (current entity): 1912 (renamed Suruga Bank) Head office: 23 Toriyokocho, Numazu City, Shizuoka Prefecture (Numazu head-office banking department) Governance design: Company with an audit and supervisory committee
Major shareholders (recent / public basis)
| Shareholder | Ratio (approximate) |
|---|---|
| Nojima (consumer-electronics retailer, TSE PRIME 7419) | ~18% or so |
| Eastern Shizuoka Prefecture local corporates / clients | Dispersed holdings |
| Trust banks (trust accounts) | Floating |
| Individual shareholders | Relatively high ratio (regional-bank characteristic) |
Key chronology
| Year/Month | Event |
|---|---|
| 1895-10-01 | Negata Bank established (Numazu, Suntō District) |
| 1912 | Renamed Suruga Bank |
| 1957 | Renamed Suruga Bank (katakana notation) |
| 1990s〜2010s | High ROE / “regional-bank honor student” reputation via the personal-loan-specialized strategy |
| Around 2007 〜 | Full-scale lending for share houses (the breeding ground for the later scandal) |
| 2018-01〜04 | Smart Days (the operator of “Kabocha no Basha”) collapses / owner damage surfaces |
| 2018-05 | The share-house fraudulent-lending scandal surfaces through reporting ★ |
| 2018-09-07 | Third-party committee investigation report published (document falsification / systematic fraud recognized) |
| 2018-10-05 | FSA business-improvement order (share-house-related investment-real-estate lending suspended for 6 months) |
| 2018-2019 | En-masse resignation of management, mass appointment of outside directors, governance reconstruction |
| 2019-2020 | Debt-relief / debt-assignment negotiations with share-house owners (DDS / principal reduction) |
| 2020-05 | Capital and business alliance with Nojima (TSE PRIME 7419) ★ |
| 2021-2022 | Expansion of the “Suruga Bank in-store bank” within Nojima stores |
| 2023-2024 | Medium-term management plan “Trust Recovery / Regional Co-creation” phase |
2. Business segment map
| Segment | Content | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| Personal loans (former mainstay) | Mortgages / investment real estate / card loans | The high-ROE engine before the scandal → significantly reduced |
| Individual deposits | Eastern Shizuoka Prefecture / western Kanagawa Prefecture | Local rootedness, relatively heavy retiree generation |
| Corporate lending | Mid-sized / small and medium enterprises | A formerly weak area, the post-scandal growth axis |
| Investment-trust / insurance sales | Asset formation for individuals | Retail fee business |
| Nojima-partnered in-store bank | ATMs / account windows within Nojima stores | The core of the 2020〜 alliance |
| Regional collaboration | Eastern Shizuoka Prefecture / western Kanagawa municipalities / industry-academia collaboration | The public domain of the trust-recovery phase |
Strategy of the trust-recovery phase
- Breaking away from personal-loan specialization: shifting the footing from investment-real-estate lending → to corporate / regional collaboration
- Capital and business alliance with Nojima (2020-05): bank windows inside consumer-electronics retail stores, expanding contact points with the younger generation
- Strengthening compliance / governance: reflecting the third-party committee’s findings, expanding outside-director / audit functions
- Digital investment: online-banking functions / mobile accounts
Competitive relations
- Within the prefecture: shizuoka-fg / shizuoka-bank are No. 1 across the whole prefecture. shimizu-bank and shizuoka-chuo-bank are separate local-bank peers; Suruga is concentrated in the eastern part of the prefecture
- Out-of-prefecture expansion: it also has branches in western Kanagawa Prefecture / western Tokyo → direct competition with major regional banks / megabanks / concordia-fg
- Personal-loan residue: in the phase of contracting real-estate lending, the younger generation flows out to online banks such as paypay-fg / au-fh / sony-fg
Alliance / acquisition strategy
- Nojima capital and business alliance (2020-05): Nojima invests about 18%, in-store bank + digital fusion
- Regional collaboration: regional-revitalization agreements with Shizuoka Prefecture / Numazu City / western Kanagawa municipalities
- Relationship with megabanks: longstanding personnel exchange with city banks, strengthened personnel acceptance after the scandal
4. Regulation and policy
- Supervisor: Financial Services Agency (FSA) + Kanto Local Finance Bureau
- 2018-10-05 business-improvement order :
- Share-house-related investment-real-estate lending suspended for 6 months
- Clarification of management responsibility, fundamental review of governance
- Customer protection (building a response scheme for damaged owners)
- Third-party committee report (2018-09-07): recognized that document falsification, forgery of withholding slips, falsification of rent rolls, “show money” in deposit passbooks, and screening skipping were carried out systematically
- G-SIB: Not applicable (regional-bank scale)
- Recent policy topics:
- BOJ policy-rate normalization → deposit-loan margin improvement (a tailwind for regional banks in general)
- Regional-bank restructuring pressure (FSA-led regional-bank consolidation) — Suruga takes an independent path / the Nojima axis
- Continued monitoring of trust-recovery progress
5. Major incident: the share-house “Kabocha no Basha” fraudulent lending ★
A systematic fraud incident that shook the industry. A later trigger for the regional-bank governance debate / the strengthening of investment-real-estate-lending regulation.
Structure of the incident
- Setting: share-house operator Smart Days (the women’s-only share-house “Kabocha no Basha” brand)
- Scheme: Smart Days sold properties to individual investors → Suruga Bank made high-amount loans (over 1 億円 per 1 property) → Smart Days provided rent guarantees via sublease
- 2018-01〜04: Smart Days stopped rent payments → management collapse → about 700 名 of owners (individual investors) unable to repay
- The systematic nature of the fraud:
- Falsification of deposit-balance certificates / withholding slips (income falsification)
- Falsification of rent rolls (rent ledgers)
- Falsification of own funds with “show money”
- Screening skipping to meet sales quotas
- Recognized not as the standalone act of some branches / sales personnel but as branch-wide / head-office tacit approval
- Total lending amount: about over 1 兆円 (investment real estate as a whole, share houses being a part of it)
- Damage: about 700 名 owners, average loan over 1 億円
Resolution developments
- 2018-09: Third-party committee report → systematic fraud recognized
- 2018-10: FSA business-improvement order
- 2018-2019: En-masse resignation of management (president, executive director, and below), mass appointment of outside directors
- 2019-2020: Debt-relief negotiations with damaged owners (debt assignment + principal reduction)
- Litigation: some criminal complaints / civil lawsuits ongoing
Impact on the industry
- Strengthening of supervision over investment-real-estate lending in general: the FSA conducted a full inspection of real-estate lending at other regional banks / megabanks as well
- Governance debate: reconsidering the proper form of regional banks’ outside-director / audit functions
- The limits of the personal-loan-specialized model: the risk behind high ROE surfaced, prompting a debate on reviewing the regional-bank business model
Related
- shizuoka-fg · concordia-fg · mufg · smfg · mizuho-fg
- sbi-shinsei-bank · aozora-bank (former personal-loan-specialized type)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Suruga Bank (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/スルガ銀行, 2026-05-19 extraction)
- Suruga Bank 213 th (2025-03 period) securities report
- FSA business-improvement order (published 2018-10-05)
- Third-party committee investigation report (published 2018-09-07)
[!info] Verification status confidence: likely (based on v1.0 Wikipedia + public IR / FSA announcements 2026-05-19). Items related to the share-house incident are based on the public third-party committee report / FSA business-improvement order. Financial figures are approximate / reference values; for details refer to the latest securities report. The scale of damage / litigation outcome is subject to change over time.