The Bank of Japan decided Friday to keep its monetary policy unchanged, despite persistent doubts about its effectiveness.

The BOJ decided by majority vote at its regular two-day Policy Board meeting to keep its reserves for private sector banks at a level above 6 trillion yen.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the BOJ has continued to shore up reserves with extra cash, seeing reserves climb as high as 13 trillion yen.

In line with the quantitative easing measures, in place since March, the BOJ continues to pump money into markets and push interest rates down to near zero.

But despite markets being awash with money, the efforts are not translating into loan increases or reaching businesses and employees' pockets. Although the sum of currency and deposits continued to grow, the volume of outstanding bank loans fell for the 45th consecutive month in September, the BOJ said earlier this week.

Money is circulating in the safety of the bond markets, while banks are increasingly cautious about lending to new ventures, and larger companies are cutting their fixed costs instead of borrowing more funds.

The BOJ should expand its open market operations to include purchases of equities and real estate, economists have said, to force more money into the real economy.

BOJ board members, however, have expressed reluctance, saying they cannot foresee how this will affect the economy.