It is my great honor to have an opportunity to speak in front of you who have been in the front line of business. Japanese financial institutions have been significantly affected by the current global financial crisis. The impact has spread over to the area of retail banking through deteriorating the business performance of small- and medium-sized firms and sluggish sales of mutual funds.
I will talk today about my views on the challenges for Japanese financial institutions after the current crisis, and offer my thoughts on approaches to meeting the challenges. I hope my speech can shed new light on your thinking of retail banking strategies. I.