Japan's credit lessons: act fast, expose all losses
There is no benchmark for valuing complex credit products that may depend on a pool of derivatives, which again might be linked to a pool of sliced mortgage loans, a senior official at Japan's financial watchdog, Financial Services Agency, said.
Japanese banks have so far largely escaped the worst of the crisis because they have become more conservative after a decade-long struggle, but the country's watchdog is not dropping its guard.
"It's like an avian flu epidemic, one that Tamiflu won't work, is spreading from the United States to all over the world. Nobody really knows how to deal with it," the official said.
(Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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