Mizuho Bank apologized Tuesday after its business customers experienced trouble using its online banking services in the morning, in yet another system failure to hit the major Japanese bank.

Clients had problems when attempting to log in to their online accounts for more than three hours through around 11:30 a.m. and were asked to make transactions using an ATM or over the counter.

Mizuho suffered a total of nine incidents between February and December last year, including the shutdown of about 80 percent of its ATMs, and received business improvement orders from the Financial Services Agency in September and November.

One of the country's three megabanks is expected to announce next Monday a set of measures to prevent a recurrence.

Its parent Mizuho Financial Group Inc. is set to decide next Monday that Masahiro Kihara, its senior executive officer, will succeed Tatsufumi Sakai as president in April, company sources said.

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