1.   A primary goal of the bridge bank is to keep credit flowing to healthy bank customers as the government takes over insolvent banks.

2.   According to Japanese media, these banks will be able to apply for state control or they may be given the option of conversion into a bridge bank.

3.   After that, any bad debt still left will be transferred to the Resolution and Collection Bank, and the bridge bank will be dissolved.

4.   Insolvent banks will be allowed to fail, using a two-stage bridge bank.

5.   It said that a bridge bank might only be used in the failures at the regional level, with assets of several tens of billions of dollars.

6.   It might then be transformed into a bridge bank that would separate out the good loans and worthy borrowers and sell or try to collect on the bad loans.

7.   The legislature, the Diet, has not yet approved the establishment of a bridge bank.

8.   The idea was to create a bridge bank to take on the bad debts of failed banks and collect on those debts or sell them off at cut-rate prices.

9.   Thus, some bankers say the bridge bank is crucial.

10.   Administrative Vice Finance Minister Koji Tanami said Monday the bridge bank should take over the operations of only those financial institutions that fail.