Under the new scheme introduced in January, the Bank adopted a multiple-tier system in which it applies a negative interest rate of minus 0.1 percent to a marginal increase in current accounts that financial institutions hold at the Bank, while continuing to apply a positive interest rate of 0.1 percent to the average outstanding current account balance that each financial institution held during the past year.
The Bank devised the scheme by taking into account the following unique circumstances of Japan: an extremely large outstanding balance of current accounts at the Bank and the necessity for the Bank to proceed smoothly with large-scale purchases of assets even under the negative interest rate scheme.