TOKYO (REUTERS) - Mizuho Financial Group is considering a pay suspension for President and CEO Yasuhiro Sato but is not considering sacking him over a scandal involving loans to members of organised crime syndicates, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Takashi Tsukamoto, chairman of both Mizuho Financial and the core banking unit Mizuho Bank, is likely to step down from his post at Mizuho Bank, said the sources, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

A Mizuho spokesman said only that the bank had made no decisions on how it would deal with the matter and that it had not yet received a report by a panel of outside lawyers it had hired to probe the incident.

The measure is among steps Japan's second-largest bank is expected to report to regulators on Monday to atone for the failure to terminate loans to crime syndicate members for more than two years.

The Nikkei business daily reported that Sato was likely to receive a six-month pay suspension while more than 30 senior executives would have their pay cut.