Glowing Jellyfish to Spur Romance for Japanese Customers

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 kilometers (300 miles) north of Tokyo, is facing a decline in population afflicting rural communities across Japan. The challenge is acute for so-called shinkin banks -- cooperatives whose members are local residents and small businesses.