(h)  Diversification of risks has been attempted by encouraging bank lending for agriculture, SMEs, consumer financing, mortgages etc. and widening and strengthening the customer base in place of a narrow concentration on public sector borrowers and corporates.
Those safeguarding measures are now taken for granted, but the fact that these mechanisms prevented initial disruptions to amplify the scale of the financial crisis through malfunction of payment and settlement systems should not be underestimated (Chart 1). III. Challenges confirmed from the experience of the financial crisis  As I explained, payment and settlement systems in Japan functioned well during the financial crisis.