Japan 'zombie' Banks Repaid Most Of 1990s Bailouts

YURI KAGEYAMA

TOKYO (AP) — Japan recouped much of the public money it pumped into banks during the country's financial crisis last decade, when toxic loans totaled as much as $1 trillion, a top regulator said Wednesday.

Japan endured an economic and financial malaise in the 1990s known as the "lost decade" after a real estate bubble, built on excessive lending, burst. Insolvent lenders propped up by government bailouts became known as "zombie" banks, and cast a long shadow over the world's second-largest economy.

The banking system of the 1990s was burdened with 90 trillion yen ($930 billion) to 100 trillion yen ($1 trillion) of bad loans, Financial Services Agency Commissioner Takafumi Sato said Wednesday at the Foreign Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo. ...