The Financial Supervisory Agency will increase the number of its inspection staff, particularly those examining foreign institutions operating in Japan, from next month, officials said Tuesday.
The FSA will set up three teams to focus on non-Japanese financial institutions to cope with their increasing presence in Japan since the "Big Bang" deregulation measures of recent years, the officials said.
At present, the FSA has three teams to inspect a group of long-term credit banks, trust banks and other wholesale banks as well as foreign institutions.
With the planned organizational change, three teams will solely inspect foreign firms while another team will deal with the other organizations.
The agency will become larger next month with the incorporation of the Finance Ministry's policy-planning authority, in addition to the present authority to conduct inspections, supervision and monitoring.
Since last year, the FSA's inspection of foreign firms has led to administrative punishments for the Tokyo units of the Credit Suisse financial group, French bank BNP Paribas and Deutsche Securities Ltd.