Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Japan’s second-largest bank by market value, may spend up to $5 billion to buy a stake in a US bank in the next three years, Bloomberg quoted a senior executive as saying.

“We can’t overlook the US market in terms of stable returns and size,” said Hiroshi Minoura, head of international banking at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. “We need to push forward with investments, including acquisitions, that allow us to capture a large volume of assets,” he said.

The report referred to a “commercial lender” but did not say whether such an entity would include wealth management. There were no references to the remarks on the bank’s own English-language website. This publication was unable to reach the bank for comment at the time of going to press.

Japanese banks, like other companies from that country, were renowned for snapping up US and other Western assets in the 1980s, a process that rapidly came to a halt when Japan’s stock markets’ nosedived at the end of that decade. China has replaced Japan, to some degree, as the country seen as looking to spend on bank purchases.

Sumitomo Mitsui is studying about 20 US banks, Minoura was quoted as saying.

An acquisition in the US would help the Japanese bank to reach its stated target of getting 30 per cent of banking profit from clients overseas within three years.