Press Conference by Taro Aso, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

(Tuesday, October 29, 2013, 8:44 am to 8:50 am)

[Questions and answers]

Q.

Yesterday, I believe you called it problematic that Mizuho Bank had submitted an erroneous report to the Financial Services Agency but, at the same time, I think this also points out that the Financial Services Agency was unable to identify it as an erroneous report. In view of this, please let us know any thoughts you have at the moment on how to improve supervision including onsite inspection measures so that this never happens again.

A.

The process is being carried out with limited time and limited human resources, so I certainly think it must be carried out efficiently, and continuous efforts must be made toward qualitative improvement. As was just mentioned, a third-party committee has submitted a report, and after carefully reviewing it, further improvements would be made if we found necessary.

(End)