The Financial Supervisory Agency will meet with representatives from 18 major banks today to explain the newly enacted bank recapitalization law, a senior agency official said Tuesday.The briefing is intended to encourage banks to voluntarily apply for capital injection of public funds under the new law, Deputy FSA Commissioner Hideichiro Hamanaka indicated.FSA officials will make clear, for example, whether and how a bank's management will have to take responsibility if they receive public funds, Hamanaka told a regular news conference.No banks have applied to receive public money from the 25 trillion yen fund since the law went into effect Friday, the same day the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan was nationalized under the financial revitalization law, another pillar of legislation for sorting out the nation's banking problems.The FSA will soon ask the 18 banks about their lending plans for the latter half of this fiscal year, which ends in March. If the FSA finds excessive credit tightening, it will send these lenders "instructions," Hamanaka said, without further elaboration.Meanwhile, the FSA is continuing its inspection of 18 major banks, with those for Tokai and Sakura banks incomplete, he said.
