In the recent enhancement of the facility, the Policy Board decided to double the maximum amount of the Bank’s fund-provisioning under the main rules, which had almost reached its limit, to 7 trillion yen, and increased the maximum amount of its fund-provisioning to each financial institution from 150 billion yen to 1 trillion yen.
Two areas specifically spring to mind: The one being the evolving agenda and package of measures to address the root causes of the global banking crisis, the other being the events in Europe, where certain euro zone member countries had to be rescued by others together with multilateral organisations, resulting in the European integration project being put to a rather severe test.