The state-run Resolution and Collection Corp. has bought 2.3 trillion yen worth of bad loans from hobbled banks since a revision of the financial-system revival law, the RCC said Friday.

The debt-collection arm of the state-run Deposit Insurance Corp. also said that it paid 220 billion yen for the loans, or 9.6 percent of their book value.

The figure is much higher than the 3.7 percent average before the legal amendment took effect in January 2002.

The RCC had purchased 1 trillion yen in bad loans from financial institutions during the period from April 1, 1999, to Dec. 31, 2001.

This means that since the revision, the RCC has more than doubled its purchases of bad loans on a book-value basis.

The amendment authorized the RCC to apply discretion to the prices at which it buys collateral-backed loans that have gone sour.

In the January-March period of 2003, the RCC bought 1.12 trillion yen worth of bad loans, collated on a preliminary basis.

If the sum of problem loans that the RCC has securitized, as well as that of loans to troubled corporate borrowers the RCC hopes to revitalize, is included, the tally of dud loans purchased by the RCC since January 2002 would come to 3.2 trillion yen.

Some ruling coalition politicians and economists have called for the RCC to buy soured loans at book value or at values similar to book value, which would amount to another taxpayer bailout of banks. Critics have argued that this would put further strain on the debt-ridden national coffers.

Said an RCC official, "Bad-loan disposals are about to reach their peak, as two years have elapsed since the Financial Services Agency adopted the policy of expediting the direct writeoff of bad loans."