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The story
On September 18, the Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting decided to raise its policy rate by 0.25 points to 1.25%. It’s the first hike in three months since the June meeting, and the roughly twice-a-year pace that had held since March 2024 is now accelerating. The nine-member Policy Board was split, with two members — Toichiro Asada and Ayano Sato — voting against. On 5ch, threads grew around the impact on variable-rate mortgages, why the yen keeps weakening even as rates rise, and the backgrounds of the two dissenting board members.
BOJ decides to raise rate to 1.25%, two members dissent — Nikkei
September 18, 2026, 11:55
At its Monetary Policy Meeting held on the 18th, the Bank of Japan decided to raise its policy rate by 0.25 points to 1.25%. It marks the first additional hike in three months since the June meeting, accelerating the pace of increases that had run roughly every six months since March 2024. The move aims to curb the risk of prices overshooting due to factors like rising oil prices and yen weakness.
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
Should've gone with fixed back when it was still 1.5%.
Can't believe we ended up here after listening to the "experts'" bad advice.
There were people pushing fixed-rate even back then — those are the real experts.
Low rates were never going to last forever. A 50-year mortgage was out of the question to begin with.
At 1.5% variable is still way cheaper, and rates going up doesn't mean variable rates jump immediately. If hikes keep going at this pace, variable might hit 1.5-2% in about 3 years or so.
That's basically how it works, so why does everyone think "variable = instant bankruptcy"?
Guess there are still some decent people who don't sell out for money, huh.
So Ueda voted in favor, lol.
Whyyyyyyyyy
Until the interest rate gap with the US closes, the yen won't stop weakening. That's the root cause right there.
We rely on imported energy and food, and every purchase means selling yen to buy dollars. NISA investing and IT service payments are structurally yen-selling too.
The part of the rally that was pricing in a surprise 1.5% hike just unwound. Maybe they'll push it to 1.5% in October?
They say rents will go up too, but worst case for renters you can just downgrade to a cheaper place.
Still bonus time! Globally, rates easily top 5%.
It's not that simple though. Families with kids can't just move into a studio. Worst case, the family ends up splitting apart.
2% would be a cleaner round number.
Is there some downside to going bigger?
Like for mortgages or something?
Probably because it's not just mortgages — it also hits companies with loans and people with student loans.
Apparently 0.25-point moves are the number that causes the least disruption to society. The US also does small 0.25-point adjustments.
Huh? He's the house running the table.
He's never going to agree to coordinated intervention again.
So what if rates go up? Does that mean fewer jobs?
It just means you guys suffer under your loans.
What happens if you can't get a loan? Does that mean fewer jobs?
Re: #66
So? Does that mean fewer jobs?
Word is it'll hit 1.5% in three months.
Market forecasts have hikes at every meeting through next summer.
A December hike is basically a done deal.
Board Member Asada: keeping rates unchanged would have been preferable
Board Member Sato: a hike at this timing is inappropriate
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Reflationist members sent into the BOJ
Toichiro Asada (Professor Emeritus, Chuo University): took office April 1, succeeding Akira Noguchi.
Ayano Sato (Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University): took office June 30, succeeding Junko Nakagawa.
In a situation like that, of course the yen keeps weakening even if the BOJ only hikes 0.25.
I wonder which side the dissenters are actually on — did they want 0.5, or did they want no hike at all?
Apparently they're reflationists sent in by the Takaichi administration, which is thrilled about the weak yen, so it's probably the "don't hike" camp.
It's written in Re: #136.
It's meaningless unless the gap with US rates narrows, so of course the yen keeps weakening. If you want yen strength, the US needs to cut rates.
Stretch it out to a 70-year loan.
Just work hard and pay it off. And if you get sick and can't work anymore, there's mortgage life insurance (dan-shin) that reduces or waives the balance.
Just make extra principal payments. Skip NISA investing and put all of that toward paying down the loan early instead.
Only civil servants and retirees living off government-bond-funded handouts are sitting pretty.
Background and key points of this discussion
Since lifting negative rates in March 2024, the BOJ had kept hikes at roughly a six-month pace, but this time the gap was just three months since the June meeting — shorter than before. A rate hike doesn’t get passed straight through to variable-rate mortgage rates at the same size immediately, since there’s a lag before each bank revises its base rate — so the “instant bankruptcy” take seen in the thread isn’t entirely accurate. It was also widely noted in the thread that since the US FOMC keeps hiking too, pressure on the yen to weaken will persist as long as the US-Japan rate gap doesn’t narrow. The two dissenting board members took office in April and June 2026, respectively, and appear to have voted against out of a preference for continued monetary easing — but it’s worth keeping in mind that this was part of the Policy Board’s normal voting process, and doesn’t amount to a rejection of the rate hike itself.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “BOJ decides to raise rate to 1.25%, two members dissent.”
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