Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. said Wednesday it has revised upward its earnings forecast for the business year to March 31 to a 1.17 trillion yen group net profit, compared with its previously estimated 9.3 billion yen.

The bullish outlook reflects the economic recovery that has helped megabanks dispose of their bad loans. MUFG saw higher earnings from its corporate borrowers, allowing it to set aside less money for nonperforming loans.

The forecast is the highest so far among the megabanks and almost double the forecast profits announced by Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc.

MUFG also said it has raised its annual dividend by 1,000 yen from the earlier planned 6,000 yen per share.

Figures for the business year will be the first full-year results since the Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. merged with UFJ Holdings Inc. on Oct. 1 to become Japan's biggest banking group.

The forecast is much improved from the earnings results of the previous year.

In the previous business year, MTFG posted a 338.4 billion yen group net profit. UFJ Holdings said separately its group net loss widened to 554.5 billion yen for the same year, from a 402.8 billion yen net loss a year earlier.

UFJ, the smallest of the four megabanks, sped up its writeoffs of nonperforming loans ahead of the merger of the financial groups last October.

The banking units -- Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and UFJ Bank -- were finally merged Jan. 1.