In a report tabled in the parliament on Tuesday, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said it found lapses in 22% cases where loans were written off.

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In a contraction, purchasing power goes down as loans are repaid or written off.

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The loans which have been written-off are mainly because of property re-valuation.

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Many of these loans will have to be written off.

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As home prices have stabilised, unemployment has gradually declined and troubled loans have been restructured or written off, the two have set aside ever smaller provisions for loan losses.

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Worse, rather than writing their bad loans off, Japanese banks have merely written most of them down.

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But bankers say the rule of thumb is that only about 15% of restructured loans eventually become bad debts (and even they need not be entirely written off).

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