Japan's Mizuho Financial Group will pay back 500 billion yen (4.5 billion dollars) in public funds, the largest amount ever to be returned by a bank, a report said Wednesday.
Mizuho concluded that a stock market rally, better business conditions and an improved environment for raising capital ensured it can maintain its financial health after the repayment, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
The figure amounts to some 20 percent of the total Mizuho received from the government to help it restructure.
A Mizuho spokesman said he could not comment on the value nor the timing of the repayment but said the bank is working to return the money quickly.
"There is no change in our policy of wanting to return public funds soon but as for the amount or the timing, we must hold discussions with the related authorities," said spokesman Kazumi Sugimoto.
Japan has injected 9.72 trillion yen into 16 major banks since the late 1990s to shore up their balance sheets as they struggled to improve profitability and write off a mountain of bad loans.
As of September, only 628 billion yen had been paid back.
The four banks that merged to form Mizuho - the former Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank, Industrial Bank of Japan and Yasuda Trust and Banking - received some 2.94 trillion yen in total. The group has so far paid back 100 billion yen.
With a surging stock market, the group believes it will be able to maintain its capital adequacy ratio above 10 percent at the fiscal year-end at the end of March even after returning the funds, the newspaper said.