Sanwa Bank and Tokai Bank will form UFJ Bank by Jan. 15, completing their merger two and a half months earlier than planned, due to better-than-expected progress toward computer systems integration, Sanwa and Tokai presidents said Wednesday.
Moving up the timetable of the merger, originally planned for April 1, will give the two banks under UFJ Holdings Inc. 8 billion yen to cover restructuring costs and bad loan disposal for the current fiscal year, which ends March 31.
At the same time, the system consolidation will accelerate UFJ's planned reduction of branches, resulting in 81.5 billion yen in projected cost cuts through March 2006.