Banking in Japan

This chapter focuses on the structure, performance, and some of the defining characteristics of the Japanese banking industry. An analysis of the banking industry in Japan may be of particular interest because of its important role in one of world’s largest economies, its historical orientation to banks in its financial system, its idiosyncratic features related to the nature of the Japanese corporate environment such as its “main bank system,” and its significant transition, which is sometimes idiosyncratic to this country, such as the banking crisis of the 1990s. After providing an overview of the Japanese banking system, we focus on some specific topics on banking in Japan, including the Japanese main bank system, lending technologies in Japan, the Japanese banking crisis, and banking in post-crisis Japan.