Top 150 World Banks in 2001: "Asian economic crisis"?

The news of the crash of the Nikkei, a place where almost no Japanese household keeps its money, made world news, while the trillions of dollars spilling out of the top Japanese banks wasn't even mentioned.  In just one year, in just one Japanese bank, Sumitomo, the increase in assets alone, $409 billion, was almost as much the entire assets at Bank of America of $621 billion (which lost $20 billion that year).  And this was before the NASDAQ plunged by three quarters and the NYSE plunged by a third.

One Japanese bank, Mizuho Holdings, has almost $1.3 trillion in assets, a quarter of a trillion dollars more than our top bank, Citigroup. Only one other bank in the world grew more than Sumitomo, the German bank Allianz, whose assets increased by $423 billion (compared to only $149 billion at at out top bank Citigroup).  Bank One of Chicago at $269 billion, is less than a fifth the size of Mizuho and lost $345 million.  This sure is a strange "Asian economic crisis".  Not only did these banks experience unprecedented growth in assets, but between 2000 and 2001, profits at Sumitomo Bank increased 35%, at Fuji 51%, at Dai-Ichi 20%, at Mitsubishi 68%, at Sumitomo Trust 27%, Hiroshima Bank 139%, Yamaguchi 88%, Juroku 37%, Iyo 20%, Nanto 105%.  There were Japanese banks who lost money, but the dramatic growth in assets far outweighed the unusually small losses they reported. The biggest loss, Sanwa Bank, was $1.3 billion, but its assets increased by $17 billion to $462 billion.  Bank of Tokyo lost $1.2 billion but its assets increased by more than $135 billion, to $735 billion.  Tokai Bank lost $.5 billion but its assets increased by more than that.  This is a dramatic increase in bank assets in Japan from 2000.

It's hard to imagine the conditions under which a bank can grow by $135 billion in just one year, an amount greater than the total asset value of of all but eight US banks, and lose $1.3 billion. Only Citigroup, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wachiovia, Wells Fargo, Fleet Boston, US Bancorp, and American Express are bigger than $135 billion, but well known American banks like National City Corp, SunTrust Bank, Bank of New York, Fifth Third Bankcorp, BB&T, State Street Corp, and PNC Financial are considerably smaller.

And the icing on the cake is that banks are not where the Japanese keep their family savings, which are 24-35% of each wage "dollar" and have been for at least half a century.  Instead, they keep their savings in semi-private Postal Savings Accounts.

The real "Asian economic crisis" is that Japanese banks just don't have enough places to put all these extra trillions of dollars.

http://www.americanbanker.com/rankings.html?rankingchart=/BTHC/Assets/071202TopWorldBank.htm

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