Mizuho Bank suffered Friday system failures that prevented its branch counters across Japan from conducting transactions, such as deposits, withdrawals and transfers, its parent company said, the latest in a series of system crashes that have hit the major Japanese lender.

Mizuho Trust & Banking Co. also suffered similar malfunctions at its branch counters, according to the major banking group Mizuho Financial Group Inc., but the group's internet banking and automatic teller machines were unaffected.

The group said the problem was caused by the failure of a component in the core accounting system and it was fixed at around noon. The banking group learned of the problem on Thursday, but it was unable to restore the system in time for the start of transactions at the counters on Friday morning.

"We take it extremely seriously that the failure happened while we were working to prevent any recurrence following the previous crashes in February and March," Mizuho Financial Group President and Group CEO Tatsufumi Sakai said at a press conference as he apologized to those affected by the problem.

Asked about the possibility of his resignation, Sakai said he wanted to fulfill his responsibility by looking further into the cause of the latest failure and beefing up the preventive measures the company is currently implementing.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference the system failure "significantly damages the credibility of financial institutions and is very regrettable," noting that the bank experienced four separate problems in February and March that "greatly affected individual and corporate users."

Finance Minister Taro Aso, who doubles as the financial services minister, said at a separate news conference that he expects a "quick and careful restoration" of the system, but added he has yet to receive a detailed report on the failure.

The four earlier system failures occurred over about two weeks from Feb. 28 this year. A total of 4,300, or about 80 percent, of Mizuho's ATMs nationwide were affected, with more than 5,000 bank cards and bank books swallowed by the machines.

The latest crash came as the Financial Service Agency is investigating the system failure in February and March, with an eye to issuing a business improvement order against Mizuho.

A third-party panel consisting of lawyers and system management experts said in a report that the problem was caused by human error such as inadequate deployment of technology-related staff and a company culture of hesitating to speak up during emergency situations to avoid responsibility.

The financial group also suffered large-scale system failures in April 2002 and March 2011.

==Kyodo

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