Former FSA Commissioner Becomes “President of Sony FG! Unprecedented descent from heaven raises questions about corporate structure

“I am aware that he has served as an advisor to private companies, but I had no idea that he would even become president. …… It’s a bit of a shock to my ears.

On April 28, it was announced that Toshihide Endo, 64, a former Commissioner of the Financial Services Agency, would be appointed President and CEO of Sony Financial Group (FG), which oversees Sony Bank and other Sony Group financial businesses. The appointment of the former head of a financial institution’s “governing body” to the position of president has caused turmoil in the industry.

Mr. Endo joined the former Ministry of Finance in 1982. He served as director general of the Financial Services Agency’s Supervisory Bureau and became FSA commissioner in 2006. After stepping down as Commissioner in July 2008, he became an advisor to Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance in November of the same year, and has ‘descended from heaven’ to more than 10 companies as far as we can confirm. In November of the same year, he also became a senior advisor to the Sony Group. Many people involved in the matter were coldly critical of him, saying, “It’s not right for him to go hunting for a new job as soon as he retires from his post.

Supervision Mr. Endo was the one who had been making repeated requests to financial institutions to strengthen their governance when he was Director-General and Director-General. One of his particular enemies was life insurance, one of Sony FG’s main products. He was also concerned about the heated competition at the time in the sale of “tax-saving insurance,” which claimed that it could save taxpayers money through insurance.

Sony FG became a wholly owned subsidiary of parent company Sony in September 2008, and the financial business has become an important segment along with the game and music/entertainment businesses.

Sony FG’s core business is personal online banking, insurance, and non-life insurance, and its organizational structure is slightly different from that of megabanks, which have a strong corporate business.

Mr. Endo had been working as an advisor for a number of companies, but it appears that Sony was his “main choice” after leaving the bank.

He thought that Sony, with its private offices, secretaries, and cars, was his ‘main business,’ and that other companies were just a way to make some extra money. He could have been a director of Sony because he could serve as a conduit to government agencies, but it was a shock to see him as the president of a “real business unit.

To begin with, there have been very few cases in which a former Commissioner of the Financial Services Agency has been nominated to head a leading financial institution. To say the least, we have not seen such a case since Hirofumi Gomi (73, entered the former Ministry of Finance in 1972) was appointed Chairman of Shinsei Bank in 1947. However, Mr. Endo’s ambition is strong. Since becoming an advisor to Sony, he has been researching fintech and the management of the Sony Group as a whole in preparation for the coming day,” said a former desk clerk at a national newspaper.

Sony FG has been involved in a major scandal involving a Sony Life employee who fraudulently transferred ¥17 billion in funds from an overseas subsidiary to defraud the company in 2009. When new scandals are uncovered, will the Financial Services Agency take strict action against a company with a “former top executive”? The governance of the Sony Group as a whole is being questioned.