Last year, attention on the Bank of Japan focused squarely on its nine-member board and the thinking of key officials at the monetary affairs department.
After six months of monetary policy on cruise control, and little prospect of change in 2017, the spotlight has turned to the financial markets department and its daily and monthly operations.
While Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda and the board set down basic guidelines in September to pin short-term interest rates at minus 0.1 percent and the yield on 10-year government bonds at about zero percent, they left management of this yield-curve control program to the financial markets department. This means everything from which bonds to buy and when, to how to purchase them, whether it be on a regular schedule or in special actions.