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BOJ’s Lending Under Virus Program Triples After April Tweaks
Bank of Japan lending under its virus funding program tripled after it essentially offered to pay interest on the loans at its April meeting, the latest results show. The outstanding amount of loans under the program jumped to 12.7 trillion yen ($119 billion), the central bank said Thursday. The increased demand illustrates the impact of the BOJ’s decision to indirectly pay interest on the loans and to open them up to a wider range of financial institutions. Rather than charge a negative rate of interest on the loans, a move that could have generated criticism from customers paying interest to commercial banks, the ... (full story)