Nikkei: Japanese pension fund to shoulder costs of BOJ's negative rate - RTRS

The Nikkei Asian Review, a Japanese newspaper, reported that the world’s largest pension fund, Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), has decided to shoulder the costs charged on its deposits under the Bank of Japan’s negative rate policy, as cited by Reuters.

Key Points:

“The move puts GPIF in line with other institutional investors, some of which had agreed to accept the cost of negative rates.

The BOJ says about 7 trillion yen ($62 billion) overseen by all trust banks are subject to the minus rate.

GPIF, which manages roughly 157 trillion of pension savings for Japanese nationals, posted a 2.97 percent return on its investment in the July-September quarter as global stocks rallied.

But its domestic bond portfolio returned just 0.16 percent in the quarter, as the BOJ kept government bond yields around zero percent under its ultra-easy monetary policy.”