 The Bank of Japan had for many years, and as late as February 2001, stated that "quantitative easing ... is not effective" and rejected its use for monetary policy.According to the Bank of Japan, the central bank adopted quantitative easing on 19 March 2001.Under quantitative easing, the BOJ flooded commercial banks with excess liquidity to promote private lending, leaving them with large stocks of excess reserves and therefore little risk of a liquidity shortage.