The Bank of Japan surprised the market on Tuesday by doubling incentives designed to spur bank lending, weakening the yen and lifting Tokyo stocks at a time when the nation's economy is showing signs of trouble, The Wall Street Journal reported. In the hope that it will open the spigot for lending to the broader economy, the central bank said it will expand two programs where it offers fixed-rate loans at rock-bottom interest rates to commercial banks.

Japan’s huge glacier of stationary household wealth may finally be melting, a development that could help local markets and the country’s economic recovery, The Wall Street Journal Japan Real Time blog reported. After much fanfare, the activation of Nippon Individual Saving Accounts officially kicked off Monday. Part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic reform plan, the tax-free NISA system is designed to coax Japan’s chronic savers to put money into stocks, bonds, and other assets to spur domestic growth instead of just parking cash in regular bank accounts.

Japan's financial regulator came down on Mizuho Bank harder than expected yesterday for not addressing loans to members of alleged criminal groups, and for the way it handled disclosures about the problem, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Financial Services Agency ordered Mizuho Bank to suspend for a month its loan transactions with consumer-credit affiliates, which handled the questionable loans. It also ordered Mizuho Bank and its parent, Mizuho Financial Group Inc., to submit a business-improvement plan by Jan. 17.

In Japan, the world's largest retirement fund is being eyed to help the country come out of its long-running economic woes, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his supporters in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are trying to push more of $1.2 trillion in public pension money into more speculative investments, especially the stock market. More aggressive investments could help continue the market momentum that has made the Tokyo market the best performer among major markets this year.

Japan needs to quickly lower its corporate tax rate to less than 30 percent to boost the nation’s competitiveness in the global market, Deputy Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said, according to Bloomberg News today. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to experiment with reforms in the labor market, health care and agriculture and other areas in the zones -- a central plank of his growth strategy. Japan will lower its tax on corporate profits to 35.6 percent from 38 percent in April when a temporary levy to fund reconstruction of regions devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami ends.

Japan’s banking regulator will seek to introduce penalties for manipulation of financial benchmarks, joining market watchdogs around the globe in pushing for broader authority and tougher supervision, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Financial Services Agency should get formal authority to supervise organizations that set benchmarks such as the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) and to conduct investigations, an advisory committee to the regulator said in a statement on Tuesday. The FSA plans to submit a bill including the changes to parliament next year.

The president of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., one of Japan's biggest financial institutions, said his company has extended an unspecified number of "suspicious loans" to people with ties to organized crime, the latest in a series of firms to make such an admission since a scandal in September over a similar disclosure by a rival, Mizuho Bank Ltd., The Wall Street Journal reported.

The share of Japanese households with no financial assets rose to a record as falling incomes forced people to dig into their savings, highlighting the potential for widening disparities under Abenomics, Bloomberg reported. The proportion reached 31 percent, according to a Bank of Japan survey released in Tokyo yesterday, up from 26 percent a year earlier and the highest since the poll began in 1963. The BOJ surveyed 8,000 households of two or more people aged 20 years or older from June 14 though July 23.

Japanese restaurant chain Wagamama has gone into voluntary administration, and its Southbank venue in Melbourne has been shut down, The Age reported. Administrator KPMG took control of the business on Tuesday. Staff at the restaurant chain received news that the company behind Wagamama had gone into administration on Thursday and Friday. KPMG partner and administrator Ian Hall said the Southbank restaurant had been closed soon after the business was taken over. "The reason being was that it was not profitable," he said.

A move by the Bank of Tokyo to challenge the Solid Energy debt restructuring deal could backfire, leaving the bank being owed even more money, says Finance Minister Bill English, The New Zealand Herald reported. A debt restructuring process aimed at rescuing the struggling state-owned coal miner Solid Energy was announced on October 1. The Auckland branch of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ is recorded as the second-largest lender to Solid Energy and is opposing the proposed deal. Last week It lodged proceedings in the High Court in Auckland challenging the process.