Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka tried to offer assurances Sunday that the government would do everything it can to avert a financial crisis if some banks are found to have serious problems after releasing their midterm business results.

"If the worst should happen after the announcement of the business results, we are ready to build a safety net to prevent confusion," Takenaka said on a TV Asahi program.

He was apparently referring to the protection of all deposits as stipulated under Article 102 of the Deposit Insurance Law.

Takenaka suggested deposit protection and other safety-net measures should cover not only banks with nationwide branch networks (known as city banks) but also regional banks.

"Article 102 was used in the event of the collapse of the Resona group," he said. "But the law does not say it should be applied only to city banks and should not be applied to regional financial institutions.

"If (a regional credit order) faces crisis, we will invoke the article," he said.

The nation's seven major commercial banks plan to announce Tuesday their business results for the April-September first half of fiscal 2003.

Takenaka said major banks' ratios of nonperforming loans against total outstanding loans are steadily declining.

The interim business results will probably show the ratio of such loans will drop to the 6 percent level from the 8 percent level last year, he said.

Meanwhile, commenting on the ongoing debate over how to reform the nation's pension system, Takenaka said he personally "understands" the feelings of those who are against the health ministry's proposal to raise premiums to 20 percent of annual income from the current 13.58 percent.