However, in the medium to long run, banks in general are facing pressures to improve productivity, and it will become increasingly difficult for weak players to prevent entry from abroad. Banks have to squeeze costs to safeguard profitability on a sustainable basis.
In Japan, as I mentioned earlier, it was the period from 1997 to 1998 when real GDP declined the most, and it was the fall of 1997 when interbank money markets became destabilized (Chart 16).