Bad loans continued to make a dent in major banks' profits in fiscal 2000, even as the heat intensified to get to the bottom of the problem, according to fiscal earnings reports announced by Friday.
Two of four major banking groups suffered pretax losses in while the third, Mizuho Holdings, also suffered a sharp drop in the growth of pretax profits, as they continued to set aside loan-loss reserves aggressively.
Pretax profits of Mizuho Holdings rose a meager 2.2 percent to 581.4 billion yen. It managed to eke out a consolidated net profit of 211.3 billion yen, by aggressively selling share holdings, even as Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan wrote off 851.9 billion yen for nonperforming loans.