Having returned to head the Financial Reconstruction Commission, Hakuo Yanagisawa on Wednesday emphatically ruled out the possibility of an extension to a controversial payoff plan.
One day into his new job, the FRC chairman said the new plan, which limits the maximum guarantee any individual depositor can claim to 10 million yen in the event that a bank fails, will be introduced in April 2002 as scheduled.
The plan, which had been originally set for April 2001 but has been postponed by a year, is expected to hurt banks with shaky foundations from next year as people become more cautious about opening one-year term-deposit accounts.