1.   At current Nikkei levels, analysts believe most banks already have implicit losses on these equity portfolios.

2.   Banks first have to assess whether a borrower is a credit risk.

3.   Banks have frozen loans and many small businesses are stretched to the limit.

4.   Banks have the legal right to recover their money.

5.   Customers of other banks will have more securities, fewer bank deposits and their banks will have fewer operational balances.

6.   International banks have departments to deal with this aspect of trade.

7.   Most worrying are smaller companies which borrowed heavily but do not have big banks behind them.

8.   Some banks also have a hit list of people whom they threaten to sue for damages.