Hirogin : FY2021

Expanding the horizons of the future

HIROGIN HOLDINGS INTEGRATED REPORT

About Hirogin Holdings

Management Policy

Management Vision

Contribute to the creation of a prosperous future for the regional community as a trusted Regional Comprehensive Services Group by closely offering thorough support to customers

Code of Conduct

Hirogin Holdings will endeavor to create the shared values with the regional community and realize a sustainable society, based on five items of the Code of Conduct.

Contributing to local communities

Contributing to customers

Enhancing corporate value

Increased job satisfaction

Compliance

Work in step with

Think and act from

Continuously enhance

Create a cheerful,

Exercise a high level

regional communities

the customers' points

the Company's

rewarding corporate

of compliance

to actively contribute

of view to contribute

corporate value

group where everyone

to their development

to their prosperous life

works healthfully

and business

development

Brand slogan

Expanding the horizons of the future

01 Hirogin Holdings INTEGRATED REPORT 2022

Hirogin Holdings

INTEGRATED REPORT 2022

Contents		About
	Hirogin
	About Hirogin Holdings
		Holdings
	Management Policy	1
	Message from the President	3
	History	9
	What We Aim to Achieve by Transitioning to a Holding Company Structure	11
	Purpose of Our Transition to a Holding Company Structure	13
	Business Model/Source of Value Creation	14
	Group Structure	15
	Growth Driver (Growth Strategy for a Holding Company Structure)	16	What
	Progress of Group Management (Initiatives after Transition to Holding Company Structure)	17
	Maximizing Group Synergy (Results of Transition to a Holding Company Structure)	19	We
	Further Maximizing Group Synergy	20
	How We Will Enhance Sustainability (Initiatives for Sustainability)	21	Aim
	to
	Value Creation Process	23
	Achieve
	Promotion and Enhancement of Sustainability Management	25
	Promotion and Support for Sustainability Management of Business Partners	27
	Carbon Neutrality	28
	Diversity and Inclusion	41
	Digital Transformation (DX)	49
	Contribution to Achievement of SDGs	52	How
	How We Will Grow (Progress of Mid-Term Management Plan 2020)	55	We
	Message from Financial Officer	57
	Will
	Mid-Term Management Plan 2020	61
	Initiatives Aimed at Practicing Customer-Oriented Business Operations	63	Enhance
	Regional Vitalization and Regional Revitalization	66
	Strategy for Corporate Customers	69
	Strategy for Individual Customers	76	Sustainability
	Channel Strategy	81
	Digital Strategy	84
	Human Resource Strategies	88
	Restructuring	92
	Summary of Business Performance/Nonfinancial Highlights	93
	How We Support Our Management Base	95
	Corporate Governance	97
	Message from an External Director	103	How
	Communication with Stakeholders	105
	Risk Management	108	We
	Compliance	110
	Will
	Customer Protection Management	111
	Internal Audits	112	Grow
	Board of Directors and Executive Officers	113
	Website Links	114

				How
Editorial Policy
Hirogin Holdings, Inc. (the "Company") has prepared this "Hirogin Holdings INTEGRATED REPORT 2022"				We
to facilitate understanding among stakeholders, particularly investors, of the Company's initiatives aimed at
			Support
sustainable value creation.
In editing this report, we referred to the International Integrated Reporting Framework advocated by
the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the Guidance for Integrated Corporate Disclosure and				Our
Company-Investor Dialogues for Collaborative Value Creation advocated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade
			Management
and Industry, and other guidelines, and the Report details the Company's business model and explains the
mechanisms to sustainably create value.
				Base
Hirogin Holdings INTEGRATED REPORT 2022		02

About Hirogin Holdings

Expanding the horizons of the future together with our customers

Achievements and challenges apparent eighteen months after transition to a holding company structure

Based on our strong commitment of "contributing to the creation of a prosperous future for the regional community," eighteen months after launching our transition to a holding company structure, Group management has taken root at a faster pace than envisaged.

I had thought that the cooperation of the operating companies would be our greatest challenge, but Group employees have a good understanding of the direction that the Group is heading in and are engaging in business activities by collaborating with Group com- panies. An operational flow has started to move in the appropriate areas in which the bank's branch offices, which stand at the front lines of customer relationship building, are identifying customers' issues and needs beyond financial areas and passing that information appropriately and accurately to the respective operating companies, and the operating companies are demonstrating their specializations in proposing solutions to those issues and meeting those needs.

Their achievements in building many relationships through dialogue with customers will lead to a sense of fulfillment among our employees, and give them a sense of enjoyment and reward in their work. I am increasingly hopeful that creating more opportunities to recognize their own role in society will help them to make even greater contributions to the growth and prosperity of the region.

Under our previous organization, we dealt with customers in a "product-out" approach, in which we made proposals from among the product and service options handled by the bank. However, more and more often, we found ourselves failing to come up with good

ideas in the face of issues and needs that could not be resolved with financial products and services alone. Now, having made the complete shift toward Group management and expanded our operations and businesses into areas other than banking, the options that we are able to propose have expanded, and we are on the way to realizing a "market-in" approach.

For example, we are starting to see concrete outcomes from moves to combine the functions of Group companies, Hirogin Lease and Hirogin IT Solutions, to propose IT and DX solutions to customers while also making use of leasing arrangements. These kinds of moves are giving me a sense of a considerable change in our employees' awareness. When the people involved in these businesses come together in person and cooperate on the ground, they come up with unexpected ideas, revealing ideas for the creation of new added value. The fact that all Group companies have been brought together into our new head office building is also, I believe, adding to this effect.

On the other hand, one issue that I regard as urgent is the advancement of the specializations that each of the Group companies should be demonstrat- ing. Currently, there are still many areas in which we are not yet able to offer a wide range of products and services to meet all of our customers' diverse needs. Constantly raising the quality of our operating companies will be a never-ending challenge.

We also need to put more effort into making people in the region more aware of us as a Regional Comprehensive Services Group. I have always believed that, more than increases in the size of loans and deposited assets, the most important thing is the increase in the number of regional customers who recognized Hiroshima Bank as their main trading bank. One indicator of this that we have emphasized is the number of companies identifying us as their main bank

03 Hirogin Holdings INTEGRATED REPORT 2022

Message from the President

Holdings Hirogin About

Toshio Heya

Representative Director and President

Achieve to Aim We What

according to main bank surveys. Over the past several years, as we have been stepping up our efforts to become a Regional Comprehensive Services Group, we have been pleased to see a definite increase in this number. This has given us certainty that we are heading in the right direction. Having said that, our output is still not as strong as it should be, and we recognize that further efforts to raise awareness are needed. At the same time, whereas until recently, people were naturally aware of Hirogin's presence as they walked the streets of this city, with physical branches and ATMs catching their eye, now, with the increasing use of net banking, we are proceeding with plans to reduce the number of branches and ATMs. This presents the major challenge of how we replace and compensate for the role of branches and ATMs in advertising our presence to customers. There is a growing sense of urgency in the realization that raising our brand awareness and thoroughly advertising our presence will be extremely important factors in the maintenance and creation of relationships going forward.

Becoming an indispensable connector for the region

Amid loud claims about the need to reorganize regional banks and the acceleration of moves by regional bank alliances to convert to a holding company structure, the Hirogin Group embarked on Group management with its own by transforming into an independent holding company. This was entirely due to our desire to become a corporate group that is indispensable to this region and to be the Group that the people of the region would most trust and rely on for advice and appropriate responses when they face problems.

For all this talk about changes in the business environment, it must be remembered that each region has its own different factors. The region of Hiroshima and other three prefectures (Okayama, Yamaguchi and Ehime), which is the Group's main sales base, has maintained a considerably large economy and population compared with other regions of Japan. It is for precisely that reason that taking the independent route was an option for us, and it is also a true indication of our faith in the region's potential. Nevertheless, maintaining the status quo will mean a decline, and with the population shrinking, we are not in a position to sit and do nothing.

As we aim for the economic development of the region from perspectives such as how we can encourage new industries or how we can support the redevelopment of the region or revitalize tourism, the question of how to provide the necessary functions to achieve these aims is instilled in our management vision of "contribute to the creation of a prosperous future for the regional community as a trusted Regional Comprehensive Services Group by closely offering thorough support to customers."

There is no way that a single corporate group could ever accomplish these kinds of initiatives on its own. It is essential we pursue such initiatives by uniting and collaborating with the regional community, including local governments. Our objective in establishing one of our subsidiaries, Hirogin Area Design, lies precisely in that aim of regional revitalization. One thing that is often said about regional banks is that their role is to "connect." To connect customers with other customers. To connect government administrations with customers and to the region. These are our roles, and, by fulfilling those functions properly, we hope to boost the redevelopment and revitalization of the region and, together, pursue activities to "expand the horizons of the future."

Considered from the perspective of the ideal business portfolio for achieving this goal, the list of necessary

Hirogin Holdings INTEGRATED REPORT 2022		04

Sustainability Enhance Will We How

Grow Will We How

Base Management Our Support We How