Japan co-op plays matchmaker to single depositors

Tokyo

DEPOSIT your money at a bank in northern Japan and you could get more than interest payments. You might end up getting married.

This weekend, 184 depositors at Tsuruoka Shinkin Bank - single men and women with an average age of 32 - are invited to mingle in front of a tank of glowing jellyfish at a local aquarium for the lender's first "marriage-hunting" party, known as konkatsu. The bank in Yamagata prefecture, 500 kilometres north of Tokyo, is facing a decline in population that's afflicting rural communities across Japan. The challenge is acute for so-called shinkin banks - cooperatives whose members are local residents and small businesses.