Partial Revision to Policies Regarding Mizuho's Fiduciary Duties and Review of Action Plans –Commitment to Customer First (Client–oriented) Business Management– (17:00) (HTML) (PDF/72KB)

In February 2016, in the interests of stating clear policies for and making a stronger response with regard to the practice of the organization's fiduciary duties as a corporate group, Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. ('MHFG'; President and CEO: Yasuhiro Sato) established and made publicly available: (1) its Policies Regarding Mizuho's Fiduciary Duties; and (2) action plans for each of its group companies aimed at realizing the above.

A report on the progress of each company's action plan is to be disclosed each fiscal year via the website of that company. In preparation for this release, we have invited a panel of three academics and industry experts from outside Mizuho to join our fiduciary duty advisory committee. At the first session of the committee, the panel discussed and reviewed Mizuho's fiduciary duty initiatives, providing insightful advice into how to further improve them.

Based on advice from external experts and the current status of our group company action plans, and with the objective of further enhancing our client-focused business management, we hereby announce a partial revision of the Policies Regarding Mizuho's Fiduciary Duties, and revisions to company action plans.

We have adopted the Principles for Customer-Oriented Business Conduct set forth by Japan's Financial Services Agency on March 30, 2017, the same date as this release.

Going forward, as a long-term partner in providing appropriate products and services which are in our customers' best interests, and in seeking to continue to be our customers' most trusted financial services partner, we are committed to developing and pursuing customer-focused initiatives.

• 1. The Holding of the Fiduciary Duty Advisory Committee

MHFG formed a committee, headed by the Group CEO, of members from MHFG and other group companies, as well as three external experts (listed below). The committee had its first session (the First Meeting of the Fiduciary Duty Advisory Committee) on March 10, 2017.

To ensure that we are able to further incorporate the customer first principle into our business management, in addition to engaging in discussion about fiduciary duty initiatives at Mizuho, we also received suggestions and advice from advisors aimed at further improving the current system. These included ideas about how to enhance our monitoring of conflicts of interest, how to make information easier to understand for customers, and what kind of frameworks would better allow our employees to perform their fiduciary duties when dealing with customers in a sales environment.

• 2. Partial Revision of the Policies Regarding Mizuho's Fiduciary Duties and Review of Action Plans

In light of the suggestions from the external experts outlined in the table above, the current status of MHFG's action plans, and the information contained within Principles for Customer-Oriented Business Conduct, released by Japan's Financial Services Agency, and with the aim of further embedding customer-focused business management into the organization, we have made partial revisions to the Policies Regarding Mizuho's Fiduciary Duties. Revisions are shown in Attachment 1.

Additionally, after carrying out reviews of group company action plans for the new fiscal year based on the policy revisions above, we have established and released new action plans. These are shown in Attachment 2.