Nippon Credit Bank, under new management, applied to the Financial Reconstruction Commission on Tuesday for an injection of 260 billion yen in public funds into its capital base.
The application will be followed by the submission later this week of a plan to restore the bank's finances to health.
The NCB was nationalized in December 1998 after collapsing under the weight of bad loans made during the asset-inflated bubble economy of the late 1980s.
The bank was sold to a consortium led by Internet investor Softbank Corp. last Friday.