This week the Financial Supervision Agency took over the job of supervising the country's banks from the Finance Ministry's banking bureau.

ECONOMIST: Will Tokyo finally clean house?

Unfortunately, Mr Hino has a staff of only 400, and a senior official at the Bank of Japan worries not only that the banking bureau has, to all intents, imploded, but that the new agency lacks expertise.

ECONOMIST: Will Tokyo finally clean house?

Theoretically, Japan has enough savings to do this but in practice the savings don't get intermediated through the banking and life insurance companies and the trust fund bureau and the post office savings account in sufficient quantities to buy these bonds.

CNN: ASIANOW - Asiaweek