The Joyo Bank, Ltd.
Utilizing Primagest’s Centralized Administration Platform
A Model for Consolidating Tax and Public Fund Operations Through Collaboration Between Regional Banks

Behind the scenes of the reform that has integrated tax and public fund operations through and through
Click here for the interview video about the case study of “consolidating tax and public fund operations through collaboration between regional banks”

 

── Could you give us an overall picture of utilizing Primagest’s integrated centralized administration platform to consolidate tax and public fund operations?

<Mr. Kamada>
Since October 2025, we have been handling the administrative work for tax and public fund collection on behalf of Tsukuba Bank. We take the receipts for the national government funds, local taxes, municipal taxes, and utility bills paid in at Tsukuba Bank’s service counters, and consolidate them at our operations center. There, we sort them and tally them up using Primagest’s “Integrated Centralized Administration System,” which our bank has introduced.

Tax and public fund operations involve large amounts of money and high volumes of cases, so they are an area where mistakes are not acceptable. Previously, both banks had been handling all the processing within their own systems, but with this initiative, we have established a system whereby our bank handles all the administrative processing centrally.

──What kinds of challenges led to the decision to consider business outsourcing?

<Mr. Kamada>
Our bank introduced Primagest’s “Integrated Centralized Administration System” in July 2021, and we have been using it to process paper forms—for example, the ones for tax and public funds and the ones for authorizing account transfers—ever since. However, recent years have seen a significant drop in the handling of paper payment slips, due to developments like the spread of account transfers and electronic tax payments and the introduction of the unified local tax QR codes.

As a result, although the existing system was working stably, some spare capacity was arising in its processing capabilities. Meanwhile, at Tsukuba Bank, with the use of paper forms continuing to decline there as well, the deadline for upgrading the tax and public fund system was looming, and the question of how to get it done all by themselves was becoming a challenge.

The two banks had long been collaborating in non-competitive areas, such as running their internal mail services jointly. In addition, they regularly shared their challenges through information exchange sessions run by administrative staff from financial institutions headquartered in Ibaraki Prefecture. Against this background, the idea of “consolidating operations in the form of having one of the two handle the work” began to take shape.

 

──I imagine there were some hurdles to overcome before taking the leap of switching to collaboration with another bank. Could you tell us about any difficulties you encountered?

<Ms. Kondo>
Since there were no precedents, we were not sure if it would even be possible for one financial institution to take on work from another. For example, we needed to check with the authorities to make sure that there would be no issues in terms of banking operations.

What proved more of a struggle than expected was dealing with local governments in the role of a designated financial institution. Within Ibaraki Prefecture, our bank and Tsukuba Bank are virtually the only designated financial institutions, and the number of local governments we cover is also large. Even municipal operations that appeared to be the same at first glance varied from one local government to another in terms of details like the formats for daily trial balance sheets, the terms used for tax items, and the accounting standards. Moreover, some municipalities changed their designated financial institutions on a rotating basis, and in some cases, the procedures differed slightly each time they did so.

As a designated financial institution, we had to carefully explain matters to the local governments and coordinate with them to make sure they understood that “we were simply going to be undertaking outsourced administrative work, and our relationships as a designated financial institution would remain unchanged.” This coordination took a lot of time and effort.

 

──Could you explain the process leading up to the start of the contracted work?

<Mr. Kamada>
Around the summer of 2023, we began considering the possibility of taking on outsourced administrative tasks and, after conducting technical evaluations in collaboration with Primagest, we concluded that the system was fully capable of handling the requirements. We decided to proceed with the project around six months later in March 2024, and subsequently began working on confirming the operational requirements and getting ready to develop the system. After around 18 months of preparations, the system was launched in October 2025.

Since both banks were using the same “Integrated Centralized Administration System” from Primagest, we initially thought, “There should be virtually no systematic differences, should there?” However, when we actually looked into the details, we found slight differences in terms of administrative procedures, the use of forms, and the supplementary rules.

For example, even when it came to handling forms, there were different approaches to deciding which aspects should be handled by the system and which through business processes. Toward the end, practitioners from each field gathered to make sure everybody got completely on the same page. After having close to 50 meetings over a preparation period of around 18 months, and with support from Primagest as well, we were able to commence operations without a hitch.

──Could you tell us about the benefits and advantages you have gained from introducing the system?

<Ms. Kondo>
The biggest benefit is that processing that was previously being done twice between the two banks can now be completed in a single round of work. Previously, processing done by authorized collection agency financial institutions and processing done by designated financial institutions were handled separately. However, we have now integrated both environments within our bank’s system, and have centralized the operations by consolidating and categorizing the aggregated data.

As a result of this, at our bank, we are expecting to see more effective use of system resources, plus stable revenue of around 40 million yen over the next five years. And at Tsukuba Bank, I hear that they are predicting cost savings of around 40 million yen, and that at the same time, their services have been strengthened as a result of redeploying to the sales department some 70 to 80 percent of the staff who had previously been assigned to the administrative work.

Furthermore, thoroughly reviewing the administrative workflows of our two banks together gave us an opportunity to take another look at operations that had been inefficient on our side as well. As a result, it is also helping reduce the burden on both banks and local governments alike.