Response to Aging Population & Low Birthrate

MUFG has positioned "contributing to making Japan a leading asset management center" as one of its growth strategies.

As a global comprehensive financial services group, we will promote investment and support asset formation through further enhancing our industry-leading asset management and investor services and providing customer-centered professional investment advisory services, diverse solutions, as well as financial and economic education.

The Trust Bank established the MUFG Financial Education Institute for the purpose of providing practical and effective information on asset building and asset management from a neutral standpoint.

In fiscal 2025, aiming to achieve financial well-being (FWB) ^(note) for the working generation, we conducted surveys on the financial well-being and financial literacy of corporate employees. Through various channels, we disseminated information designed to help working people alleviate financial concerns and gain insights and support for leading autonomous lives.

In our report, Retirement Withdrawal Strategies for Individual Investors, we explored withdrawal strategies for achieving a financially secure and fulfilling retirement. In addition, the Director of the Institute participated as a speaker in a session at the Nikkei-TSE IR Fair 2025, where he delivered a presentation on this topic.

Going forward, we will continue to contribute to addressing the social challenge of promoting stable asset building for households through research and information dissemination. In addition, by providing information and support to companies pursuing human capital management, we will contribute to enhancing employees’ financial well-being (FWB) and promoting asset building.

Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation has established the MUFG Inheritance Research Institute to conduct research and studies on asset management in an aging society and the smooth transfer of assets to future generations.

In fiscal 2025, recognizing challenges such as declining cognitive function and financial management capacity among older adults, the Institute launched a three-year joint research project on signs and predictors of functional decline in the elderly in collaboration with Setagaya City, the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Sophia University, and other organizations. In addition, it initiated industry-government-academia research efforts aimed at addressing housing-related social issues, including abandoned vacant houses and affordable housing. The Institute also participated in the development of a tool designed to help verify whether wills prepared by elderly individuals genuinely reflect their intentions.

Going forward, through symposiums, the publication of various reports, the release of a book on inheritance in the Reiwa era in July 2026, and collaborative research with industry, government, and academia, the Institute will continue its efforts to help address the social challenges of achieving smooth asset management and the transfer of assets to the next generation.

Today, the value of financial assets held by elderly citizens has grown bigger than ever before, while an increasing number of people suffer from dementia. Aware of these circumstances, we offer not only trust products that serve as solutions for testament formulation and the advancement of assets but also robust services to help mitigate our customers’ looming sense of anxiety at the prospect of a possible aging-related cognitive deterioration.

In the coming era of centenarians, the ways people live and design their lives are expected to become increasingly diverse and transcend the scope of conventional concepts centered on the three life stages of student, worker and retiree. In addition to flexibly accommodating needs arising from changes in modes of education and workstyles, financial institutions are being called upon to help customers secure funds for post-retirement living and to provide other financial solutions that enable, for example, housing loan borrowers to complete repayment even after retirement. In addition, amid the ongoing diversification of lifestyles, these institutions need to respond to the housing-related funding needs of customers wishing for flexibility in their choice of accommodation.

With this in mind, the Bank provides housing loan products with options linked with the assumed residual value of properties. These products are designed to provide borrowers with various choices aligned with an increasingly diverse range of life design, for example, options to reduce monthly payments or to secure funds for future relocation.

Since 2018, the Trust Bank has been advancing research in "financial gerontology," a field that analyzes how changes in cognitive function due to aging affect economic activities and financial behavior, and studies services that enable elderly individuals to utilize their assets in ways they desire. Through this research, we aim to develop products that prepare for cognitive decline and contribute to the health and longevity of our customers.

Following the proof-of-concept experiments conducted in fiscal 2023 as part of our joint research with industry and academia, we plan to introduce an AI application in fiscal 2024 that can estimate cognitive function (an AI application to support checking the suitability of financial products). Additionally, we aim to implement a mechanism to check understanding of wills in fiscal 2026.

Going forward, we will continue to expand services that contribute to resolving the challenges of an aging society.

Strengthened Group-based initiatives for encouraging people to design their own lives and ways of living by making clever decisions grounded on correct information.

We aim to provide financial and economic education to a total of 1.5 million people over the three-year period through fiscal 2026.

For details, please refer to Financial and Economic Education.