BOJ reduces bank funds that will be subject to new negative rate - Bloomberg

As Bloomberg reports, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is reducing the share of funds financial institutions keep at the BOJ that will be subject to the new negative interest rate policy.

The central bank increased the ratio applied to the portion of deposits exempt from negative rates to 2.5 percent from the initial zero. It takes effect April 16.

The change increased the portion of the current account balances to which a zero interest rate is applied, thus shrinking the portion to which the rate of minus 0.1% is applied, a bank official said, asking not to be named due to bank policy.

The negative rate will be applied to between 10 trillion and 30 trillion yen in the two months starting April 16, the bank said in a statement. That compares to 23.1 trillion yen during the Feb.-March period.