The head of the Financial Reconstruction Commission pledged Friday to have major banks probe allegations that some of them padded figures of loans extended to small and midsize firms during fiscal 1999 to deflect public criticism of a credit crunch.
"We will get those banks to scrutinize their loan figures and submit reports to our commission," FRC Chairman Hideyuki Aizawa told the House of Representatives Finance Committee.
Aizawa was responding to a Diet interpellation by legislator Kiyoshi Ueda of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan that some banks systematically dressed up their loan figures, which is tantamount to falsifying reports to the Diet.