The respective leaders of the 3 merged banks.
From the left: Haruhiko Kato (Konoike Bank),
Kyozo Kikuchi (Sanjushi Bank),
Komanosuke Sasaki (Yamaguchi Bank)
Sadahiko Nakane, the first president of Sanwa Bank.
In the early 1930s, Konoike's commercial operations began to lose ground to larger banks that were financing the rapidly expanding heavy-industry sector, and it merged with Yamaguchi Bank and Sanjushi Bank in 1933. After the merger the new entity, based in Osaka and tied to textile production and other light industries, took the name Sanwa (san meaning "three," wa meaning "harmony").