Press Conference by the Senior Vice Minister for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

February 26 , 2003

Q.

Is there anything you would like to announce?

A.

On Monday, I had a meeting with Mr. Akio Okuyama, President and CEO of the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (JICPA), and yesterday, I was given a specific report on the content of the meeting from the JICPA. In conjunction with this, I believe an explanation was given by the administration staff on the revision of the Inspection Manuals. If you have any questions, please ask.

Q.

Please elaborate on how financial administration will be executed in the future based on the series of measures, and what kind of responses are expected from major banks subject to those measures.

A.

In the financial sector, reliability is extremely important. In view of this, we have compiled the Program for Financial Revival and we have been working on it according to the work schedule. As part of this, auditors of major banks were given instructions in the form of instructions from the JICPA president to firmly confirm the reasonableness of deferred tax assets. In order to increase the reliability, we compiled the Program for Financial Revival and we are forging ahead with its fulfillment in concrete terms, in view of tightening assessment of assets, enhancing the capital adequacy of banks, and further strengthening the governance of financial institutions. As positive efforts are being made by financial institutions in various ways based on the Program for Financial Revival, we deeply hope that such efforts will make further progress.

Q.

Some members of the ruling parties think it may be worth considering the postponement of stockholding restrictions. If this becomes a policy, will the Financial Services Agency (FSA) object to it?

A.

As the ruling parties have not yet finalized their policy on this matter in concrete terms, we are not thinking about how we should deal with it at this stage.

To the present, the Banks' Shareholding Acquisition Corporation and the Bank of Japan have been purchasing shares and working together in an effort to alleviate the shareholding risks through the introduction of the so-called shareholding restrictions. As the members of the ruling parties are having discussions from various angles under these circumstances, we intend to keep an eye on their discussions.