Further reduction in deposit rate possible, Bank of Japan´s Kuroda says

The governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, said on Friday that a further move of its deposit rate into negative territory was 'technically possible', although he was not exactly sure to what extent.

In any case, he would first want to assess how the reduction to 0.1% carried out in early February was working through the economy.

Speaking during a parliamentary session, Kuroda said: "It is technically possible to implement a larger negative rate, although I couldn’t say with certainty how far we can go. In any case, at this stage, I’d like to closely examine the degree by which our recently decided minus 0.1% rate has filtered through.”

Kuroda also noted that such decisions would hinge on the health of commercial banks and how much it cost to hold cash in the form of bank notes.

As of 07:56GMT the dollar/yen was 0.15% higher to 112.82.