Mizuho signs up with Kamakura for default and correlations data

Mizuho Financial Group has signed up to Kamakura’s risk information services, the Honolulu-based software company has confirmed, as the Japanese financial behemoth seeks to strengthen its lending activities following years of write-offs.

The database provides users with counterparty default probabilities and correlations data for 25 countries, and will form a major part of Mizuho’s continuing strategy to remove problem assets from its balance sheet to cut costs related to write-offs.

Tokyo-based Mizuho is one of the world's largest banking groups, with assets of $1.3 trillion, and is Japan’s second largest lender.

Following the collapse of the property and equity markets in the 1990s, Japanese banks were left with a series of write-offs. But after years of government aid, banks are now being required to pay back funds from government coffers.

Japanese banks have been upgrading their risk management practices in the past few years, partly in preparation for Basel II, and a pick-up in corporate activity is sparking more interest in lending activities, according to a recent report by India's ICICI Bank.

Hawaii-based Kamakura has provided daily default probabilities for listed corporations since November 2002.