The financial system remained generally stable, although conditions at home and abroad worsened due mostly to the accumulation of household debt and the fallout from the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. The resilience of the financial system was heightened as the soundness of banks, which make up the backbone of the financial system, improved, boosted by large-scale net profits, and as foreign exchange soundness also remained on a trend of improvement thanks to the effects of steps taken to enhance macroprudential soundness, including imposition of theMacroprudential Stability Levy on non-core foreign currency deposits. In addition, the volatility of financial market price variables stabilized at a low level.[...]