11.   American depositary receipts of Mitsubishi Bank Ltd. fell after Japanese banks had to pay more to borrow money overseas.

12.   Among the issues they will review is whether hundreds of millions of dollars borrowed from Japanese banks by Barings went to finance the margin calls.

13.   Analysts here say Japanese banks are not yet suffering any credit crunch, since they are still able to borrow foreign currencies from the market.

14.   Among the biggest obstacles Japanese banks face in competing globally are the huge amount of irrecoverable loans they hold.

15.   Analysts say small Japanese insurance companies may be forced out of business as foreign insurers and Japanese banks enter the market.

16.   An interest rate swap is the rate at which most Japanese banks can obtain fixed-rate financing for making a loan.

17.   An unknown portion of these loans are bad, but if Japanese banks behaved with the same imprudence as elsewhere, the prognosis is not good.

18.   And because Japanese banks and businesses have long had huge holdings in each other, the popping of the speculative bubble brought both of them crashing down together.

19.   And fully half the foreign currency-denominated debt held by Thai companies is held by Japanese banks.

20.   And Japanese banks are already among the lightest-staffed in the world, say bank analysts.