In remarks after a Cabinet meeting, the Japan Financial Services Agency outlined a Cabinet-approved bill to partially amend the Act on Special Measures to Strengthen Financial Functions, aimed at maintaining and updating policy tools that support regional financial institutions’ role in local economies. The proposed amendments would extend and expand the deadlines for the capital participation system and the fund grant system, positioned as part of the framework stemming from the plan to strengthen regional financial capacity compiled at the end of last year. With the application deadlines for both systems currently set to end in March, the agency called for early deliberation in the Diet.