Local News

The 18 primary regional banks headquartered in the Kyushu-Yamaguchi Prefecture region released their results for the April-December 2009 period. Seven of the banks swung back to profitability during the period, eight posted year-on-year increases, and three recorded losses. The amount of money the banks spent in the aggregate to dispose of non-performing loans was nearly halved to 54.5 billion yen from 111.4 billion yen in the previous year.