Nov 21. The Bank of Japan decided at its meeting Friday to leave the uncollateralized overnight call rate at 0.3%, as it believes further reduction of lending rates will deprive commercial banks of the incentive to lend. Japan’s monetary authorities are not willing to return to the zero interest rate. On October 31, 2008 the central bank’s executives decided to lower the lending rate from 0.3% to 0.5% in a bid to prevent the recession from deepening in the country.