The Bank of Japan is changing how it prices one of its routine short-term lending tools, though the shift sits in the plumbing of money markets rather than in the policy rate itself.
On September 25, 2026, the BOJ's Financial Markets Department said its Short-term Funds-Supplying Operations against Pooled Collateral will move from a fixed rate to a floating rate. The operation supplies short-term funds against collateral already pooled with the central bank. It is a funding channel, not the rate the BOJ sets for monetary policy.
The operations had run on fixed-rate terms since April 2024, with the BOJ setting the offer size at whatever amount it judged appropriate for each round. Under the new arrangement, that discretion over offer size stays the same; what changes is that the rate charged will float rather than be fixed. The BOJ attributes the switch to amendments made to the "Principal Terms and Conditions for Funds-Supplying Operations against Pooled Collateral," adopted at the Monetary Policy Meeting held September 17 and 18, 2026.
The notice stops short of a number. The BOJ says offer amounts for each operation will be announced when it conducts them, not disclosed in advance or in this release. There is no published floating-rate formula, spread, or reference benchmark in the notice, and nothing in it describes how the change might move short-term money-market rates. Cash desks reading the notice should treat it as a terms-and-conditions update to a lending facility, not a signal about the BOJ's policy-rate stance.
The Market Operations Division of the Financial Markets Department is handling inquiries on the change, per the contact line in the notice. The practical test arrives with the first floating-rate operation, whenever the BOJ next runs it and discloses the offer size that goes with it.