The Bank of Japan Act stipulates that the purpose of the Bank is to carry out currency and monetary control as well as to contribute to the maintenance of the stability of the financial system, and therefore the Bank is responsible for taking care of both tasks equally (Chart 6).
Moreover, due to the unfavourable macroeconomic environment, there has been a significant credit contraction since the end of 2010, with an accumulated decrease of the outstanding credit to the private sector of about € (or a decline of more than 20%) for the period December 2010 to December 2015.