Kyoto Bank Says Cross-Holding Cuts, Merger Options on Table (2)

For years, Nobuhiro Doi resisted calls for Japanese banks to end the long-standing practice of holding shares in their corporate clients. Now the 68-year-old president of Kyoto Financial Group Inc. is beginning to come around to the idea.

“We cannot completely ignore increasingly demanding views toward strategic holdings,” Doi said in an interview at the bank’s headquarters in the ancient capital. He is also becoming more open to mergers, though he has no plans in place now.

Nobuhiro Doi

Photographer: Taiga Uranaka/Bloomberg

With about ¥1 trillion ($7 billion) in cross-shareholdings, Kyoto Financial has been a symbol of Japan’s old guard holding out against ...