Japan Household Assets: Updated Sept. 21, 2026.

Japan household assets hit record 2,519 tril. yen on rising stocks

Ideas

For a long time most Japanese households just had savings and not much more but now many have other types of assets including shares in the stock market.

It seems the day of just keeping cash on hand is now gone as more and more utilize banks and other financial entities.

The BOJ increasing the key rate recently was a good for those holding government bonds as the key rate increase was an incentive to buy or invest in the bonds.

At the same time, other than savings accounts, there might not be than many still investing in the stock market as some might say investments in the stock market is like gambling, you can just as easily loose what you invested as well as getting some kind of return on an investment.

The negative side of the BOJ increasing the key rate is the rate that households are going to pay more on their debts including their use of credit cards, which at one time the use of credit cards in Japan wasn't that much but Japan households now use credit cards a lot more these days.

At the other side of the BOJ increasing the rate is the incentive to use the cards will decrease along with wanting to get loans by businesses and especially small businesses who need emergency loans to keep in business.

Its very possible that cash and deposits have decreased due the idea that inflation has reduced the disposable income of households as they had to withdraw cash from their savings now for everyday use instead of using what extra income they had left, after paying their bills.

And yes, the BOJ still holds a lot of government bonds as they would buy bond to keep the government going and help the government with needed programs.

But at the same time, its true the BOJ has been reducing its buying of government bonds as it know the debt to ratio by the government is basically out of control and they need to find a  way to reduce the debt such as not buying as many government bonds.

Have a nice day!

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260917/p2g/00m/0bu/028000c