, is a Japanese bank headquartered in Tokyo. It is a corporation held by Japan Post Holdings, in which the government of Japan has a majority stake. It is a major financial institution that started in 1875 as a postal savings system, and that still today continues to operate primarily out of post office branches. It manages over ¥205 trillion of assets and offers services in almost 24,000 branches across Japan. At times in its history, it was the largest financial institution in the world. Since its conception, it has played a significant role in both making economic services to people in Japan and making investments towards the economic and industrial development of the country. Throughout the vast majority of its history, Japan Post Bank had always been fully government owned and organizationally a part of the postal system. In 2007, a bill was passed to begin the privatization of Japan Post Bank and to create separate companies to handle the distinct responsibilities of Japan Post. The government's sale of its shares in Japan Post Bank and its holding company are still ongoing. Organizational history The postal savings system in Japan was started in 1875 by Maejima Hisoka, who is known as "the father of the Japanese postal system." Before he founded the postal system as a whole four years before in 1871, Maeijima had spent time observing the postal system of the United Kingdom and was impressed by its offering of postal savings services. Adoption by the public was rapid, with 10,000 customers within the first three years of operation. After World War II, in 1949 the postal savings system was relaunched under the newly formed Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. As the economy recovered, postal savings grew to tremendous sums, reaching ¥1 trillion in 1960 and ¥100 trillion in 1985. In 2001, the postal savings system came under the jurisdiction of the Postal Services Agency, which soon reorganized into Japan Post in 2003. Through all these organizational changes, the postal savings services were managed by a single government-owned company that also handled significant postal and insurance divisions. In 2006, Japan Post Holdings was founded as a government-owned holding company in preparation for the division of these responsibilities into separate companies with partial private ownership, a reorganization which occurred on October 1, 2007. On November 3, 2015, the shares of Japan Post Bank Company debuted for the first time