The Social Insurance Agency will mail letters Tuesday to some 500 people, demanding they pay their national pension premiums or face measures such as the confiscation of their bank deposits, agency officials said.

The agency said Monday that the letters will represent a final warning for the individuals concerned, whom officials have determined are not paying into the pension system despite having sufficient income or assets to do so.

If these people do not inform authorities of their intention to pay by the end of February, the agency will take radical measures, including seizing bank deposits, officials said. The last time the agency resorted to such action was in fiscal 1990.

Agency officials hope this strategy will prompt the estimated 3.3 million people who are not paying their premiums to cough up.

According to agency figures, a record 37.2 percent of the people obliged to pay into the national pension scheme did not pay their monthly premiums of 13,300 yen in fiscal 2002. The figure rose by 8.1 percentage points from the previous year, with experts stating that the system will plunge into crisis if the trend continues.

In November and December, the agency drew up a list of about 9,500 people nationwide who did not pay a single yen into the pension system for the year that ended on March 31, 2003, had sufficient income or assets and ignored repeated requests to pay.

These people were sent letters asking them to pay their premiums.

Officials also visited these people and urged them directly to shoulder their share of the pension burden. They finally concluded that some 500 of these individuals had no intention of paying.