Seventh this year! Japan's Mizuho Bank ATMs collapsed again

Beijing, 8 Sep (Xinhua) -- A system failure occurred at Mizuho Bank on September 8, affecting the operation of about 100 ATMs. This is the seventh such failure at Mizuho Bank this year.

Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported that the failure occurred at around 9:20 a.m. that day, due to a "hardware failure", and the affected services were later restored.

On March 17, 2011, two maintenance workers repaired a malfunctioning Mizuho Bank ATM at a station in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Xinhua news agency reporter Feng Wuyong)

Mizuho Bank, the core of Japan's financial giant Mizuho Financial Group, last had a system failure on August 23, affecting about 130 ATMs. The system failure reported on August 20 was of a wider range, affecting hundreds of Mizuho Bank branches in Japan.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu said last month that the System Failure on August 20 "seriously damaged the credibility of financial institutions and was very regrettable," while Mizuho Bank suffered four failures in February and March this year, "seriously affecting individual and corporate users."

Mizuho Bank's first four failures this year affected 80% of ATMs in Japan, causing more than 5,000 bank cards and passbooks to be "swallowed". (Chen Dan)