Zentoshin Padded Books by 63 B. Yen over 20 Years

Tokyo, July 10 (Jiji Press)--Zentoshin, a Japanese credit card payment processing service provider that has begun bankruptcy proceedings, was found to have falsified its financial statements by some 63 billion yen over at least 20 years, it was learned Friday.

To maintain access to loans from financial institutions, the company submitted financial statements that did not reflect its actual financial condition, through practices such as recording fictitious deposits.

The window-dressing has been carried out for at least 20 years, and the company is believed to have had debts exceeding assets by about 60.5 billion yen as of the end of March this year.

The detailed circumstances leading to the business failure were revealed in the bankruptcy petition obtained by Jiji Press.

Zentoshin, based in the western Japan city of Osaka, was forced to lower commission fees that the firm received from member stores on the back of growing popularity of smartphone payments, with its earnings rapidly deteriorating from around 2015.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]