The Board also has been a strong proponent both of expanded financial activities for banking organizations and enhanced opportunities for nonbank financial institutions to enter banking. We continue to support financial modernization because we believe it would provide improved financial services for our citizens. Moreover, both our experience and analysis suggest that the additional risks of new financial products are modest and manageable.
Innovations and structural changes over the last two decades have no doubt played an important role, namely globalization, advances in information communication technology, and financial innovations and sophistication. Indeed, compared with Japan in the 1990s, the current crisis is far more complex, interconnected and global.