Mitsubishi Bank was founded in 1880 by a former samurai, Iwasaki Yatarō, and was a core member of the Mitsubishi Group of companies. It merged with The Bank of Tokyo in 1996 to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., which at that point was the world's largest bank in terms of total assets. In 1998, upon merger of the then second and third largest Swiss banks, Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation, the newly created UBS AG became the second largest in the world at the time, behind only the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. The Bank of Tokyo had historically focused on foreign exchange business since its foundation as the Yokohama Specie Bank in 1880, while Mitsubishi had had a stronger focus on domestic corporate and retail banking. Both banks were relatively healthy in the wake of the Japanese asset price bubble. Until the Tokyo-Mitsubishi merger took place in 1996, Sanwa Bank, which was based in Osaka and was the anchor of the Sanwa Group keiretsu, had been considered the…