It is a measure for the Bank to provide financial institutions making investments and loans that contribute to Japan’s economic growth with long-term and low interest rate funds. The measure was introduced two years ago, expanded sequentially, and, in March 2012, small-lot investments and loans less than 10 million yen, which used to be not eligible, were made eligible for the Bank’s support.
In addition, the Bank decided to provide U.S. dollar loans for financial institutions’ investments and loans denominated in foreign currencies. As a result, at present, the total size of the measure stands at 5.5 trillion yen. As part of it, the first fund provisioning for small-lot investments and loans was made last month, in an amount of 3 billion yen for nine financial institutions.