The institutions involved in these mergers combined multiple threads of Japanese financial history, going back to the early Meiji era.

[12] By 2001, The Toyo Trust & Banking Co. had been added to the merger and the combined company was to be called United Financial Holdings.

During its short life, the group was plagued by bad debt problems and by infighting between the employees of its predecessor companies.

The Chairman of Toyota was a director on its board during the financial scandals and indictments of three UFJ executives.

UFJ had been accused by the government of corruption and making bad loans to the yakuza crime syndicates.

[16] The merged holding company MUFG, based on Tokyo, was formed on 1 October 2005 from the merger of MTFG and UFJH.

The latter transaction was originally scheduled to take place on 1 October 2005, the same day that the parent companies were merged.

The trust banking and securities units of MTFG and UFJ were merged according to the original schedule on 1 October 2005.

[17] In September 2008, MUFG signed a letter of intent with Morgan Stanley to form an alliance and purchase 20% of the American firm.

[20] In June 2011, MUFG took a 9.99 percent stake in Lynas Corp, an Australian rare earths developer.