ABSTRACT
In international forums, negotiating responsibility over insurance has fallen to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), with reliance on expertise provided by the Department of Commerce. The presence of the USTR would probably have a dramatic effect on the Japanese side. Providing a role for the USTR in the yen/dollar process would generate a number of advantages. Individual banks prospered, whether through product development and innovation or through risk taking and attention to market niches unattended by Japanese banks. Foreign banks, like all financial institutions, including Japanese, were limited to a prescribed niche in the market. Japanese financial markets had undergone considerable reform, with foreign, particularly US, pressure playing a significant, although intermittent, role in the process. To the Treasury, the transparency problem arose out of the system of informal regulation prevalent in Japan. Japanese law provided that foreign banks could open a representative office without first obtaining Ministry approval; mere notification was enough.
