Japan financial giant MUFG six-month net profit rises 3.6%

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) said Friday its six-month net profit rose 3.6 percent, but rival Sumitomo Mitsui suffered a profit decline on a slump in its shareholdings abroad.MUFG booked a net profit of 599.3 billion yen ($4.8 billion) for the April-September period on brisk overseas businesses and profit gains from sales of its stockholdings at home.Mizuho Financial Group reported that its net profit jumped 8.1 percent to 384.2 billion yen on gains from overseas businesses and sales of its shareholdings.Mizuho also left its full-year forecast unchanged.But rival Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group said its net profit sank 19.1 percent to 388.1 billion yen. Sumitomo Mitsui said that its net profit dropped due to a plunge in the value of shares it owns in an Indonesian bank.It also revised down its full-year pre-tax profit forecast to 1.22 trillion yen from its earlier estimate of 1.24 trillion yen. The net profit forecast, however, remained unchanged.Japan's banking system has undergone huge changes over the past two decades, including numerous mergers that have lead to a sharply reduced number of large institutions. Years of ultra-low interest rates have pressured profitability and pushed them to seek expansion overseas.