Aozora Bank, Ltd. (株式会社あおぞら銀行) is a Japanese commercial bank that offers service in 19 branches in Japan and in 2 overseas representative offices (as of July 2012).[1] Originally based on the Japanese operations of the Bank of Chōsen, it was known from 1957 to 1977 as Nippon Fudosan Bank and from 1977 to 2001 as Nippon Credit Bank (NCB).
History
Nippon Fudosan Bank was founded in 1957 to manage the remaining assets of the Bank of Chōsen in Japan. It received a special government trust banking license similar to that of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB), established in 1952. In 1977, it was renamed the Nippon Credit Bank.
In December 1998, NCB was brought under government control in order to deal with its extraordinary amount of bad debt left over from the crash of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s: at the time, the bank was approximately ¥270 billion in debt.
An investor group led by Softbank, Orix and Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co. purchased NCB in 2000 for ¥80 billion.