Banking and Financial Services: A View from the Bank of England and Treasury

BEFORE THE 1970s neither the Bank of England, nor HM Treasury were represented in Japan. There seemed to be little scope for British financial services in the closed Japanese market. But Japanese membership of the OECD began to force gradual changes to the Japanese financial fortress. There was also increasing internal pressure for change. Japanese companies wanted access to foreign loans and the Eurodollar market which was much freer than the securities market in Japan.