The bank spent an added $200 million early today, Japanese press reports said.

Since 1996, the five big Canadian banks have spent about $8.33 billion on acquisitions south of the border.

Dealers said that the central bank had spent 100 million dollars in renewed intervention on Wednesday.

He noted that the central bank had spent 150 million dollars in supporting the currency on Thursday.

Even in Japan, where the banks spent much of the last decade buried under debt, the industry is coming to life.

The bank has spent more than $300 million from its international reserves this year to defend the peso.

Last month the bank spent $500,000 on a new mainframe computer.

In August, the central bank was spending nearly $500 million a day to do so.

For example, some 9,000 banks in the United States spend nearly $20 billion each year on information technology.

Since then the bank has spent over two hundred years handling other people's money, without religious or racial prejudice.