Nine of the nation's 10 city banks managed to post pretax profits in the year that ended March 31, thanks to their progress in disposing sour loans, according to business reports released May 23.
Of the 10 banks, only Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank fell in the red, logging pretax losses of 349.8 billion yen for fiscal 1996. The results indicate that the majority of the nation's biggest commercial banks seem to have begun overcoming the nightmare of fiscal 1995, when seven of the city banks posted pretax losses after writing off massive amounts of bad loans. Together, the 10 banks registered pretax profits of 2.3 billion yen and net business profits of 2.6 trillion yen.
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi released its first earnings report since its formation through the merger of Bank of Tokyo and Mitsubishi Bank. Its pretax profits decreased to 94.7 billion yen, down from the combined pretax profits of the two banks in fiscal 1995.