Financial Reconstruction Commission chief Hakuo Yanagisawa said Friday he will ask the 15 financial institutions that received public fund injections to voluntarily report if they had dealings with the Credit Suisse group.
The Swiss-based Credit Suisse financial group was handed a set of punitive measures Thursday, including the revoking of its license for Credit Suisse Financial Products Bank for illegally obstructing regulators' probes and selling "highly inappropriate" financial products in great volume.
The 15 domestic banks were inspected to determine the extent to which they were saddled with problem loans before the capital injections.
Financial regulators feel that if these firms used dealings with Credit Suisse to knowingly conceal the existence of bad loans or latent losses, it would be deemed an action aimed at warping the inspection process.
Yanagisawa said he would raise the point of dealings with Credit Suisse with the 15 banks, and "wait for their voluntary decision" on the issue.
The FRC will consider how to deal with the matter after seeing how the 15 banks report to it, commission officials said.
If these banks deliberately hid such losses or loans with the help of the CS Group, they could face tough action from the FRC, industry sources said.
The government provided 7.46 trillion yen to the 15 banks in late March. They are Asahi Bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Daiwa Bank, Fuji Bank, Sakura Bank, Sanwa Bank, Sumitomo Bank, Tokai Bank, Chuo Trust & Banking Co., Mitsubishi Trust & Banking Corp., Mitsui Trust &Banking Co., Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co., Toyo Trust & Banking Co., Industrial Bank of Japan and Bank of Yokohama.