ETF sales to rise to ¥860 billion a year from January 2027
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) unanimously approved raising annual ETF sales to ¥860 billion on a book-value basis from January 2027. The board also voted 8-1 to set the uncollateralized overnight call rate at around 1.25 percent.
Takata seeks 1.5 percent
The call-rate guideline applies for the intermeeting period.
Kazuo Ueda, Ryozo Himino, Shinichi Uchida, Naoki Tamura, Junko Koeda, Kazuyuki Masu, Toichiro Asada and Ayano Sato supported it.
Hajime Takata dissented, proposing a rate of around 1.5 percent; the board rejected his proposal by majority vote.
Takata argued that underlying CPI inflation had reached the price stability target.
He said this marked a new phase requiring the BoJ to accelerate the pace of bringing the policy rate closer to the neutral rate, preserving its ability to respond nimbly.
His dissent concerned the rate guideline, while all members supported the faster exchange-traded fund (ETF) sales.
Sales expand with market turnover
In September 2025, the BoJ set annual ETF sales at about ¥330 billion, or 0.05 percent of market trading value.
This matched the scale of sales of stocks purchased from financial institutions, conducted smoothly through July 2025.
ETF sales began in January 2026 and have proceeded smoothly without a major market impact.
With stock-market turnover expanding, the board raised the sales scale to about 0.1 percent.
The new ¥860 billion book-value pace equals about ¥2,460 billion at market value using the observed market-to-book ratio.
Market conditions remain the constraint
The pace uses January-September 2026 Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market turnover and the market-to-book ratio of ETFs sold over that period.
Market conditions can prompt temporary adjustments within the annual pace or a suspension.
Japan real estate investment trust sales remain about ¥5 billion annually at book value.
Source: Statement on Monetary Policy
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