Bank of Japan Financial News

Shuntaro Shimizu (pictured) joins AVI after three years at Bain & Company.

Bitcoin was the notable mover as it reached for one-month highs on Monday, sustaining its rally after the Federal Reserve's super-sized rate cut last week, while the yen and most other major currencies stagnated with Japanese markets on holiday. The dollar strengthened against the yen last week after policy meetings in both the United States and Japan, hitting its highest level in two weeks at 144.50 yen. It was around 144.08 early on Monday.

Japanese Yen has set off alarms in the world of international finance and monetary policy. For the first time since 1990, the yen has weakened past the 160 level against the U.S. dollar, representing a staggering 20% loss in purchasing power over just the last year. This historic slide begs the question — is the yen acting as the proverbial «canary in the mine», providing an early warning sign of deeper systemic risks brewing in the global monetary system? The crisis facing the yen stems from a confluence of factors that have pushed the Bank of Japan into an economic policy corner. With a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 260%, among the highest in the world, Japan has been effectively locked into keeping interest rates at ultra-low levels, near zero, for years. Even as inflationary pressures have built, the BOJ has resisted aggressive rate hikes for fear of making their enormous debt burden even more unmanageable.

The Japanese currency fell on the latest announcement from the BoJ and is still down 9.5% this year against the dollar, though it has bounced back from historic lows over the past month on expectations of policy tightening.

On Oct. 12, digital currency and electronic payments firm DeCurret Holdings published a white paper on its cryptocurrency project, the “DCJPY.“ The organization intends to launch the coin in July 2024.

'We should not dismiss the fact a window of opportunity may be opening to exit deflation,' Japan's government said.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has released the results of the second phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof-of-concept (PoC) experiment and confirmed that its CBDC pilot project launched on schedule in April. The second-phase PoC ran for a year, from April 2022 to March 2023, and considered functions to complement the basic ledger functions tested in the first yearlong experiment. 

Japan's Finance Ministry is planning to establish an expert panel in April to explore the feasibility of introducing a digital yen, Japanese news outlet NHK reported. 

Japan, a nation where foreign stablecoins like USDT are prohibited, plans to begin its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot in April 2023. It will aim to include private businesses and test an ecosystem. 

Bank of Japan (BOJ) will not introduce a digital yen as a means to achieve negative interest rates, an idea sometimes discussed in academic circles, a senior central bank official said on Wednesday. In upcoming experiments on issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the BOJ will explore features such as setting a limit on the amount of transactions and holdings for each entity, BOJ Executive Director Shinichi Uchida said in a speech.

A former Bank of Japan (BOJ) official who reportedly headed the digital currency research is now advising against its use.

A consortium of roughly 70 Japanese companies, including the country’s biggest financial institutions, have joined forces to trial and launch a new yen-based digital currency in fiscal 2022, sending a strong signal that the private sector was embracing blockchain-based payment systems.