Mitsui Bank

a major joint-stock commercial bank in Japan and the financial center of the Mitsui monopoly group.

The Mitsui Bank was founded in 1876. During World War II it absorbed the Daiichi Bank and was renamed the Cheikoku Bank; from this basis two new banks were separately established in 1948 under the names Daiichi Bank and Cheikoku Bank. The latter assumed its original name of the Mitsui Bank in 1952.

The Mitsui Trust and Banking Company, an investment banking subsidiary of the Mitsui Bank, has 39 branches and a total balance as of Mar. 31, 1972, of 1,864 billion yen. The Mitsui Bank also controls major industrial and military-industrial, as well as commercial, monopolies. The bank is particularly strongly positioned in the mining and chemical industries.

The Mitsui Bank has 145 branches in Japan, including 57 in Tokyo, as well as branches in Thailand, India, Singapore, the United States, and Great Britain. It is also represented in Diisseldorf and Melbourne. The bank’s total balance as of Mar. 31, 1972, was 3,606 billion yen ($11.8 billion) and its balance of deposits equalled 2,573 billion yen ($8.5 billion).