Japanese banks' so-called risk-management loans totaled 31.8 trillion yen as of the end of September, marking a slight increase from six months earlier, the Financial Services Agency said Wednesday.
The figure includes risk assets held by Aozora Bank, the formerly state-controlled Nippon Credit Bank. With the bank excluded, the total sum came to 31.1 trillion yen, which compares to 30.4 trillion yen as of the end of March.
The increase of 700 billion yen mainly stemmed from stricter assessments of borrowers by regional banks.
The risk-management loans held by 18 major banks stood at 19.3 trillion yen last September, down 500 billion yen from last March.
As for regional banks, however, their risk-management loans increased to 12.5 trillion yen last September, up 1.9 trillion yen from 10.6 trillion yen reported six months earlier.