On April 1st Mr Nakabo becomes head of Japan's version of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the company set up to recover loans made by America's Savings-and-Loans institutions.

ECONOMIST: The enforcer

Why shouldn't a government entity take the bad loans and recover what it can from them while letting the surviving banks move forward?

FORBES: Fact and Comment

He also said that agency officials were "taken aback to learn" that banks hadn't been using the full range of legal options in trying to recover money from the bad loans.

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