Global Risk Sharing: Toward a stronger Financial System

Recent surge of large real estate lending in Japan suggests the creation of a new series of lumpy credit risk exposures entering Japanese bank portfolios. It is necessary to transform these types of large, concentrated exposures into more manageable pieces of risk. The development of syndication and securitization markets provide an antidote to this creeping risk of crisis as concentrations deepen. Without the mechanisms for distributing and managing risk, Japan will forever lag the rest of the developed world in terms of financial market development and financial market competitiveness. Even worse, the days of liquidity crunches and a contracting economy may return if the structure of the market is not modified to better manage concentration risk.