The new bank planned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is expected to become profitable in its third year of operations, according to a master plan announced Friday.

It is expected that the bank will have 1.6 trillion yen in total assets by this stage.

The bank, which will start operating in April 2005, will generate a pretax profit of 5.4 billion yen in its third year, the plan says.

The projected total assets are smaller than the 1.9 trillion yen forecast by the metropolitan government in its basic plan in November.

This is because the master plan includes a cut of 300 billion yen in expected deposits.

The bank is aimed at helping small and midsize companies raise funds.

The master plan envisages the outstanding balance of loans and repayment guarantees to be extended by the new bank hitting 930 billion yen in its third year of operations.

This total includes 280 billion yen for unsecured loans that the bank will offer to a group of borrowers, with a maximum amount of 50 million yen.

The bank will offer ordinary and medium- and long-term time deposits while covering 2.9 percent of loans with provisions for uncollectible accounts.

With a projected capital-adequacy ratio of 13.1 percent, the bank will have a workforce of 195.