Message from the Management

Thank you for your continued support and patronage of the Resona Group.

Japan’s economy experienced a gradual recovery in the first half of FY2024, while Japanese monetary policy is also moving toward “a world with interest rates”,   following the additional BOJ rate hike in July.

Amid this, interim net income attributable to owners of parent totaled 114.2 billion yen (up 31.7 billion yen, or up 38.4%, from the same period last year). This represents a progress rate of 69.2% toward the initial performance target of 165 billion yen. With the underlying strength of our core businesses confirmed, as seen from the increase in gross operating profits driven by both interest income and fee income, we have revised our full-year performance target upward to 175 billion yen, or up 10 billion yen from the beginning of the fiscal year. Additionally, our NPL ratio was 1.24% and the capital adequacy ratio 13.13%, both of which remain at healthy levels.

Regarding returns to shareholders, based on the basic policy of the Medium-term Management Plan to continue stable dividends while aiming for a total shareholder return ratio of approximately 50%, we decided to initiate share buybacks up to 20 billion yen in November, following on from May this year. As expected at the beginning of the fiscal year, the interim dividend per share will be 11.5 yen, and the annual dividend forecast will be 23 yen, an increase of 1 yen from the previous fiscal year. After the upward revision, the total shareholder return ratio against our performance target is expected to be 53.3%.

Although we have passed the halfway point of our three-year Medium-term Management Plan, the business environment surrounding finance is reaching a major turning point.
We will address these changes in a positive manner and once again focus on striving for the further development of businesses backed by the group's inherent strengths and creating new value.
With the completion of Minato Bank's system renewal (administrative and system integration) in January 2025, we will enter a new phase toward further evolution of the Group's consolidated operations.

In the future, we will continue to be a financial group that does its utmost to solve customer problems and social issues, based on our Purpose of “Beyond Finance, for a Brighter Future,” while never losing sight of our basic stance of "Customers’ happiness is our pleasure."

Going forward, I ask our stakeholders for their ongoing support of the Resona Group’s endeavors to take on new challenges.