Forget MBAs — Japan’s Banks Are Hiring Math PhDs and AI Wizards

The global war for specialized financial talent has intensified, with major Japanese banks now actively recruiting PhDs and high-level management professionals to drive their digital transformation. This strategic shift in traditional finance (TradFi) mirrors—and accelerates—a parallel trend in the global FinTech and crypto sectors, where hiring has pivoted sharply toward engineers with deep expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI), regulated finance, and Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization since the second half of 2025. TradFi’s Structural Pivot: A Response to Digital Restructuring Major Japanese financial institutions, including Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), are overhauling their foundational hiring models. Historically dominated by humanities and social sciences graduates, these banks are now prioritizing STEM expertise—exemplified by Mizuho’s decision to increase the starting salary for new employees with PhDs by around $520 (JPY 80,000; four times the raise given to bachelor’s degree holders) for the 2026 intake source: https://beincrypto.com/forget-mbas-japans-banks-are-hiring-math-phds-and-ai-wizards/