Tokyo's top financial regulator is redrawing its own org chart. On August 5, the Financial Services Agency said it would dissolve its Comprehensive Policy Bureau and its Supervisory Bureau and rebuild them into two new bureaus, effective August 7, when an amended cabinet order governing the agency's structure takes effect. In their place: a Banking and Securities Supervisory Bureau and an Asset Management and Insurance Supervisory Bureau, splitting deposit-taking and market-intermediary oversight from the funds, pensions and insurance side of the agency's work. The FSA frames the move as a response to three pressures: extending Japan's policy push to become a "leading asset management nation," keeping pace with digital-technology advances in finance, and sharpening how it monitors financial institutions.
New desks for digital money
The reorganization also creates five new divisions from August 7: an International Affairs Division, a Credit Division, a Postal Financial Services Division, a Payment Services Division, and a Cryptoassets and Stablecoins Division. The last of these absorbs the agency's former Cryptoasset, Blockchain and Innovation Counsellor's Office and sits inside the new Asset Management and Insurance Supervisory Bureau next to the Payment Services Division, putting crypto, stablecoin and payments oversight under one roof rather than split across a policy bureau and a separate supervisory one. The agency is also creating a new Deputy Commissioner post to handle agency-wide financial-administration planning and coordination, and renaming its Director-General for Overall Coordination to Director-General for Supervisory Coordination, a role that now works across both new supervisory bureaus.
| Former unit | New unit (from August 7) |
|---|---|
| Comprehensive Policy Bureau and Supervisory Bureau | Banking and Securities Supervisory Bureau; Asset Management and Insurance Supervisory Bureau |
| International Office (General Affairs Division, Comprehensive Policy Bureau) | International Affairs Division |
| Credit System Counsellor's Office (Planning and Markets Bureau) | Credit Division |
| Postal Savings and Insurance Supervision Counsellor's Office (Supervisory Bureau) | Postal Financial Services Division |
| Payment Services Counsellor's Office (Comprehensive Policy Bureau) | Payment Services Division |
| Cryptoasset, Blockchain and Innovation Counsellor's Office (Comprehensive Policy Bureau) | Cryptoassets and Stablecoins Division |
| Director-General for Overall Coordination | Director-General for Supervisory Coordination |
The units that survive the cut
Several specialist offices carry over largely unchanged, just under a new roof. The Financial Crime Countermeasures Office, the Cyber and Economic Security Counsellor's Office, the Conduct Counsellor's Office and the Macro Data Analysis Counsellor's Office all move into the General Affairs Division of the new Banking and Securities Supervisory Bureau, alongside a renamed Regional Finance Planning Office. The FSA describes these as its "cross-cutting themes," risk areas it wants visible across both new bureaus rather than boxed inside one.
What firms need to check
The practical catch is paperwork. Documents that the old Comprehensive Policy Bureau, Planning and Markets Bureau or Supervisory Bureau issued on or before August 6 remain valid even though they carry office names that cease to exist, and applications firms filed under those old bureau names on or after August 7 are likewise treated as valid. Going forward, though, firms submitting new applications or correspondence tied to those old bureaus must send them to the successor department shown in the FSA's published crosswalk table, not the old address. For a foreign bank, asset manager or payments firm with a live licensing application or an open supervisory file, that means checking which of the two new bureaus, or which of the five new divisions, now owns the paperwork. True to bureaucratic form, the agency has also opened a weekday phone line, 10am to 5pm, for firms unsure where their old filings now live.
One thing has not moved: the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, the Certified Public Accountants and Auditing Oversight Board, and Japan's regional Local Finance Bureaus keep their existing structures and duties untouched. The change is confined to the FSA's own head-office bureaus and divisions, and takes effect August 7, 2026.