2 “Japanese banks” or “banks” in this article refers to “All Banks,” comprising the member banks of the Federation of Bankers Associations of Japan, which consists of city banks, long-term credit banks, seven trust banks (excluding foreign-owned trust banks and trust banks that started business after October 1993), the 64 member banks of the Regional Banks Association of Japan (hereafter referred to as regional banks), and the 65 member banks of the Second Association of Regional Banks (hereafter referred to as regional banks II).
In other crises initial levels of personal debt have typically been a lot lower than in Ireland. Furthermore, many of those crises were accompanied by currency devaluations and surges of high inflation which, albeit hugely disruptive and costly in themselves, had the side-effect, beneficial to debtors, of lowering the real value of their debt (at the expense of others in society).