How Japanese Companies are Responding to Financial Sector Restructuring - The Nissay Business Conditions Survey (August 2001)

the Survey Analysis Team

Introduction

Against the backdrop of the bad loan problem and severe economic environment， financial institutionsare pursuing efforts to regain their health including massive industry-wide restructuring. The changesare thought to be significantly impacting their business relationships with companies.

In view of these developments， the latest Nissay Business Conditions Survey conducted in August(jointly by Nippon Life Insurance and NLI Research Institute， with 3，406 valid response from companiesnationwide) focuses on the changing relationship between financial institutions and business companies.

According to the results， companies are most worried whether financial restructuring will lead to higherloan interest rates. In addition， the majority of companies hope that financial institutions will notchange loan conditions. Companies are thus concerned about whether financing will remain stableafter the financial sector is reorganized. Moreover， compared to the previous survey (in February)，more companies who changed their financial institutions cited the consolidation of financial institutionsand decreased confidence in their financial institutions as reasons， revealing that the deterioratinghealth of financial institutions and restructuring have affected their selection of financial institutions.