Bank of Japan

About Bank of Japan

Founded in 1882 after the Meiji Restoration to stabilize the Japanese currency and financial system. The BOJ was modeled on European central banks. It financed Japanese militarism and imperial expansion in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, the BOJ supported Japanese economic reconstruction and the postwar economic miracle. The BOJ pioneered zero interest rate policy in 1999 and quantitative easing in 2001 to combat deflation after the Japanese asset bubble collapse. Under Governor Haruhiko Kuroda from 2013 to 2023, the BOJ introduced yield curve control, keeping 10 year bond yields near zero. Japan was the first major economy to experiment with negative interest rates.