TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's SBI Shinsei Bank said Tuesday it will pay back 100 billion yen ($644 million) it received in a government bailout by the end of March, with an eye to relisting separately from its parent company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

SBI Shinsei is the only major Japanese lender that has not fully paid back public money owed from the time when its predecessor, the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, collapsed in 1998 in the wake of the bursting of Japan's economic bubble.

Still owing roughly 330 billion yen of the 370 billion yen injected by the state, the bank will pay 50 billion yen from its equity capital while its parent financial group, SBI Holdings Inc., will provide 50 billion yen, it said.

SBI Shinsei said it aims to reach an agreement with the state "as soon as possible" in finding ways to repay the remaining 230 billion yen, with the deadline for the accord set in June this year.

The Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan was established in 1952 to provide financing to key industries at the time of Japan's postwar economic development.

After going bankrupt, the bank was nationalized and sold to a consortium led by U.S. investment fund Ripplewood Holdings in 2000 and reemerged as Shinsei Bank, followed by its relisting on the Tokyo bourse in 2004.

It became a subsidiary of SBI Holdings in 2021 but was delisted in September 2023 in a bid to allow for better and more flexible management and to proceed with repaying the government funds.

SBI Shinsei has performed strongly in recent times, driven by growth in corporate lending and its securities investment business after becoming a unit of SBI Holdings.

Its net profit for the April-September period expanded 70 percent from a year earlier to 44.3 billion yen, setting the bank up well to achieve its full-year profit forecast of 70 billion yen.