Japan's Financial Services Agency wants to know whether banks are treating savers and mortgage borrowers fairly now that interest rates are rising. Deposit-taking institutions are competing harder for deposits with new savings products, and some are writing mortgages with markedly longer repayment terms than before. In supervisory priorities covering the year to June 2027, published September 15 as "FSA Strategic Priorities: July 2026 - June 2027", the agency says it will check whether depositors understand what they are buying and whether mortgage borrowers' income projections match the loans they sign.
The scrutiny extends to banks' balance sheets more broadly. Supervisors will review asset-liability management, exposure to domestic real-estate lending, large single-borrower loans, overseas fund lending and data-center project finance, watching for concentration risk that could span multiple institutions rather than sit with one lender. The agency also flagged the growing role of non-bank financial intermediaries and private-asset markets for closer study. This summer the FSA split its supervision arm into an Asset Management and Insurance Supervision Bureau and a Banking and Securities Supervision Bureau, with a newly renamed Deputy Commissioner for Supervision coordinating risks that cross both.
On governance, the FSA says misconduct at financial institutions will be traced to management attitude, organizational culture and internal checks rather than pinned on individual staff, with strict handling promised for "serious and malicious" cases. Internal audit departments are told to move beyond flagging problems after the fact, and regional banks will be pushed toward pooling audit resources to cut costs.
Life insurers face tighter scrutiny of how they handle customer money, with on-site inspections available where the agency finds improper conduct, and it wants insurers and their agencies to hold sustained dialogue so sales practices match an agency's size and business. Crypto-asset exchanges remain a live target: following an August 2026 request that operators strengthen fraud defenses, the FSA will check whether they followed through, and it is moving to require a cooling-off period before newly opened accounts can move crypto to unhosted wallets.
Capital-markets enforcement gets its own line. The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission will investigate large shareholdings and acquisitions that appear designed to evade disclosure rules, along with unregistered securities solicitation carried out over social media. Audit oversight tightens in parallel: the Certified Public Accountants and Auditing Oversight Board will scale its monitoring of audit firms to their size and risk, and will examine individual audits where false certification is suspected.
| Sector | Supervisory Focus |
|---|---|
| Banks | Deposit-rate competition, longer mortgage terms, real-estate and non-bank financial intermediary exposure |
| Insurers | Improper handling of customer money; sales conduct at insurance agencies |
| Crypto exchanges | Compliance with August 2026 anti-fraud directives; new cooling-off period before unhosted-wallet transfers |
| Capital markets | Large shareholdings and acquisitions suspected of evading disclosure rules; unregistered social-media solicitation |
| Audit firms | Risk-based monitoring scaled to firm size; verification of suspected false certification |
None of this is an enforcement action yet. It is a statement of where the FSA plans to look hardest through June 2027, and companies named in each category will find out over the coming months whether closer monitoring turns into something sharper.