TOKYO -- Japanese banks are piling up more higher-risk assets, including foreign bonds and loans, because the Bank of Japan's aggressive easy-money policy has made it difficult for them to profit from trading government bonds.
This trend is seeing banks step up lending to small and midsize companies and pump more cash into foreign bonds while sharply reducing their holdings of government bonds. These moves indicate that the effects of the BOJ's new monetary policy, introduced when Haruhiko Kuroda took the helm of the central bank a little over a year ago, are gradually filtering into the banking industry.