The Bank reduced the policy rate to virtually zero percent. In addition, to further enhance accommodative monetary conditions, the Bank introduced a measure to encourage a decline in the longer-term interest rates in December 2009.
It is a measure to provide three months’ funds against a broad range of collateral in an amount of 10 trillion yen at a fixed low rate of 0.1 percent. Thanks partly to the measure, not only market interest rates but also firms’ funding costs have declined further.