As for the overnight
call money rate, Nobuyuki Nakahara, Teizo Taya and Kazuo Ueda were opposed to keeping the target rate around 0.25%, the minutes show.
Over the subsequent three weeks, the yen continued to depreciate, particularly after the Bank of Japan on September 8 lowered the ODR 50 basis points, to 0.50 percent, and guided the
call money rate below the ODR.
The central bank's Policy Board voted unanimously to keep the target rate for unsecured overnight
call money on hold.
The new rate matches the low seen in May and June of 1999, when the central bank guided the
call money rate to nearly zero.
Further monetary easing measures would include a return to the zero interest rate policy, under which the target for the
call money rate is driven to around zero.
The BOJ's interest rate cut would be the first since March 2001, when the bank introduced the ''quantitative easing'' policy, under which the central bank flooded the financial system with ample liquidity in order to drive the interest rate for unsecured overnight
call money to near zero.
11, the BOJ decided to scrap the policy of guiding the key short-term money market rate to near zero and raise the target for unsecured overnight
call money rate to around 0.25%.
-- cut its target rate for unsecured overnight
call money to 0.3 percent from 0.5 percent.
12, when it lowered its target rate on unsecured overnight
call money -- the main tool for steering central bank policy -- to 0.15% from 0.25%.
The central bank provided liquidity as overnight
call money rates on borrowings by foreign banks were slightly higher than the BOJ's official target of around 0.5 percent in the morning.
12 to steer the current policy tool, the target rate on unsecured overnight
call money, down to 0.15% from 0.25%, and gradually guide it down further, if necessary, to ward off deflationary pressure.
Overnight
call money rates on borrowing by foreign banks were at the 0.6 percent level in the morning, above the BOJ's guidance target of around 0.5 percent.