2. Enhancing corporate financial solutions

For the corporate banking business, SMBC set up two units: the Middle Market Banking Unit, in charge of mid-cap and small-sized corporate customers, and the Corporate Banking Unit, in charge of large enterprises.

The Middle Market Banking Unit aimed to establish a reputation for SMBC as a new corporate banking business brand offering strong customer-oriented solutions. The unit developed a number of programs for this purpose, including the Business Select Loan for small corporations, utilizing credit scoring models. while organizing a syndicated loan and collateralized loan obligation (CLO) business. The Unit also actively built IT-related solutions, represented by ValueDoor, which is an online platform that provides information service packages for mid-cap and small corporate customers.

At the Corporate Banking Unit, soon after the new bank began operations, SMBC consolidated the front-office functions of the two pre-merger banks. This consolidation process imposed a considerable burden on back-office operations in the earliest days when system integration was not completed, but the bank attached greater weight to providing consistent corporate banking services based on unified policies. Consolidating front-office functions was also important as a way to aggregate expertise and information held separately by the former banks and build cross-organizational collaborative structures inside the new bank.

In fiscal year 2003 (ended March 2004), SMBC rolled out the global relationship management (GRM) strategy to mobilize teams inside and outside of Japan to work together in the global business. The program started with four major corporate groups and expanded the list to 20 by fiscal year 2007.

SMBC teamed up with Daiwa Securities SMBC to proactively provide high-value-added solutions to our corporate customers related to their corporate alliances, business restructuring and reform, balance-sheet management, and other management issues.