Even with this additional cushion, however, concerns on the part of the BOJ about its balance sheet are likely to remain. The public debate over the BOJ's capital should not distract us from the underlying economics of the situation. In particular, the private shareholders notwithstanding, the Bank of Japan is not a private commercial bank.
Working with the industry leaders and experts on the T2S Advisory Group, we, the ECB and the Eurosystem will advise and cooperate with such bodies, with a firm eye on the need for progress. To focus our own effort, we intend to present a progress report on the achieved degree of harmonization to the ECB’s Governing Council by early 2009.