The “quantitative easing policy,” which set a target for money market operations on the outstanding amount of current account balances at the central bank and expanded such balances far above the required reserve levels, was also first introduced by the BOJ in 2001. The BOJ expanded its balance sheet size considerably.
From 1995 when overnight interest rates fell down to virtually zero, the ratio of the BOJ’s balance sheet size to nominal GDP increased by more than 20 percentage points at its peak (Chart 14).