major changes in the way funds and securities were settled. fifty years ago, settlement was conducted by deferred netting. today, the boj net system settles the funds among the counterparty financial institutions on - line and on a real - time gross basis ( rtgs ). the evolution of the bank of japan ’ s policies and operations reflects the different stages of development in the japanese economy and the changes in the domestic and external financial environment. in addition, the systems specific to japan and its historical background are also reflected in the bank of japan ’ s operations. here i would like to pick up two examples from different areas. one is the inclusion of securities companies or investment banks among the counterparties of the bank of japan. following the bankruptcy of lehman brothers, investment banks in the united states became bank holding companies and gained access to the central bank ’ s facilities. for more than seventy years, the bank of japan has allowed securities companies to open boj current accounts. and it has conducted on - site examination of those account - holding securities companies. this treatment of securities companies made it possible for the bank of japan to swiftly provide liquidity, as the lender of last resort, when the financial crisis triggered by the unprecedented scale of the bursting of its bubbles forced the collapse of yamaichi securities, then one of the biggest securities companies. i believe that was one of the reasons why japan was able to avoid becoming the epicenter of a global financial crisis at that time. another example from a different field is the business survey known as the tankan. the bank of japan has been sending a special quarterly questionnaire to japanese companies since 1957. the survey currently covers about ten thousand medium - sized to large companies, in both manufacturing and non - manufacturing industries. as such, the tankan provides information valuable to gaining an understanding of the state of the economy. central banks must strive to provide the operations best suited to their own environment. i believe this is also true for the central banks of african countries, represented by many of the governors here today. a few years ago, i attended a conference held by the bis with the governors of african central banks. there, i learned that banking services provided through mobile phones are widely used in africa. although i was initially surprised to hear this, i quickly realized that it is indeed quite a natural development given the geographical environment of africa, and is something which may have bearing on the operations that african central banks are endeavoring to provide. i referred earlier

sustainable growth path with price stability. to put it another way, using the new framework, this is with regard to whether the economy is heading toward achieving the “ price stability goal ”. the second perspective is in terms of what kind of risk factors are considered relevant to the baseline scenario. i would like to examine the market comments that the policy change in february was difficult to predict because such a decision could not be derived from the monetary policy framework based on the assessment from the two perspectives. at the time of the february monetary policy meeting, some positive developments were observed in domestic and overseas economies, such as receding tensions in global financial markets, some improvement observed in the u. s. economy, and the firm domestic demand due in part to reconstruction - related demand after the earthquake disaster. however, japan ’ s economic conditions continued to be harsh with the level of economic activity not having recovered from the plunge after the lehman shock, due to the slowdown in the overseas economies and the appreciating yen. at the same time, as you can find in the minutes of the monetary policy meeting in january 2012, the following recognition had been gradually spreading among policy board members during the process of discussing prolonged deflationary pressures : the bank ’ s intention in its conduct of monetary policy might not have been fully understood by firms, consumers, and markets since the bank ’ s communication had not been effective enough, and consequently the effects of powerful monetary easing have been considerably diminished. in addition, market participants and the media renewed their attention on the central bank ’ s policy stance toward achieving price stability triggered by the u. s. federal reserve ’ s decision on january 25, 2012 to set the inflation rate of 2 percent as its “ longer - run goal ”. thus, the bank faced a situation where, from the perspective of achieving the “ goal ”, it needed to consider the risk that the effects of monetary easing that was designed to achieve the baseline scenario had been noticeably compromised. taking into account such a situation, the policy board recognized that it was necessary to communicate the bank ’ s policy stance clearly in order to ensure the realization of the baseline scenario so that the “ goal ” would be achieved, and if the bank did not take such action, more time might be needed to achieve the “ goal ”. this led the bank to make a policy decision at the february meeting. also, to make its intention clear, the bank decisively increased the total size of the asset purchase program. it deemed that