Japan's Mizuho applies to set up securities company in China

BEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's Mizuho Financial Group has sought to establish a securities company in China, becoming the latest foreign firm to make inroads into China's onshore securities market with a fully-owned entity.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission has received the application from the securities arm of the third-largest Japanese banking group, according to a filing record issued on Wednesday from the regulator's website.

The application comes as Mizuho is hoping to tap China's lucrative capital markets fee pool, the largest after the United States and Europe.

"Mizuho believes that it's necessary to have our securities firm in China to achieve further growth in the key market, where we launched our banking office four decades ago and more than 30,000 Japanese companies are operating," a spokesperson said.

Citigroup and Standard Chartered are also in the process of establishing securities units in China after Beijing allowed wholly-owned foreign securities companies in 2019.

Mizuho's larger Japanese rival, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group , applied for the launch of a securities unit in 2021, but later withdrew the application due to a market manipulation scandal at its brokerage unit that led to the indictment of former executives last year.

(Reporting by Beijing and Hong Kong newsroom, Makiko Yamazaki in Tokyo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Kim Coghill)