KUMAMOTO/SHIZUOKA/CHIBA, Japan -- A group of Japanese regional banks will band together to deal with the increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks targeting the finance sector, pooling their individually limited resources to handle threats they could not manage on their own.

Thirteen banks in Japan's Kyushu region, nearby Yamaguchi prefecture, and Okinawa prefecture -- including Bank of Fukuoka and Bank of Okinawa -- will launch a cybersecurity project team in November. The tie-up is built on the existing foundation of the Kyushu-Okinawa Banking Alliance Semiconductor Solutions (Q-BASS), established to support the region's semiconductor industry.

The banks will consider joint purchasing of security systems, as well as cooperate on risk management, security evaluation, cybersecurity posture assessments and assessment of third-party risks.

Over the longer term, the group will work together to train cybersecurity personnel. They may also share human resources to avoid security gaps from staff shortages.

"Cyberattacks and financial crime are getting more sophisticated and faster, and it's tough for a single bank to handle them on its own," said Higo Bank President Yoshihisa Kasahara, a member of the project team. "Large amounts of capital should be brought to bear -- this needs to be an industrywide effort." The financial system is a core piece of the infrastructure underlying economic activity, and regional banks are connected to many businesses through their systems and operations. Shutting down even part of that network can have a major regional impact, and there are concerns that problems originating from regional banks could disrupt the financial system as a whole.

But these institutions are short on money and personnel that can be dedicated to cybersecurity. Observers have noted that they lag behind their larger counterparts despite being attractive targets for the money and personal data they handle.

Generative artificial intelligence has made cyberattacks more sophisticated and heightened the risks of system vulnerabilities being exploited. Trend Micro reports 700-plus incidents involving Japanese organizations in 2026 as of October -- more than in all of 2025.

In May, the Financial Services Agency and the Bank of Japan called on financial institutions to take urgent action to strengthen their defenses in light of the growing threat of frontier AI.

Regional banks around Japan are increasingly collaborating on cybersecurity, focusing on mutual assistance rather than competition in this area.

Technology group NEC and 12 regional banks, including Shizuoka Bank, in April set up a forum on strengthening cyber defenses as part of a broader NEC security initiative for such lenders.

Banks using systems from a range of different vendors meet regularly to share information. They have discussed responses to the recently exposed vulnerabilities in the widely used PHP programming language.

The 10-member Tsubasa Alliance, led by Chiba Bank, holds cybersecurity working sessions every six months to discuss banks' efforts and challenges. They stage joint simulated intrusion exercises each year with system providers.

When a member bank sees a fraudulent transfer, the alliance meets to share information on the attack method and countermeasures. "The resources of each bank are limited," a representative said. "We want to work together in areas where we're not competing." In guidelines released in 2024, the FSA noted that "relying solely on individual financial institutions may not always be efficient or effective" for gathering threat intelligence, especially for small banks. The agency encourages sharing knowledge through such mutual assistance organizations as Financials ISAC Japan.