Uncertainty bites the moneylenders

摘要

Japan's consumer-finance companies have been coining it for decades. They dominate the consumer-lending market, which in other countries is shared between specialised firms as well as banks and credit-card issuers. In recent years, admittedly, the banks and credit-card issuers have made some inroads and the consumer-finance companies' lending has been flat. Even so, Japanese people owe them around ¥12 trillion ($103 billion) all told, ten times the credit-card total.