Japan's key money supply gauge rose 3.8 percent in March from a year earlier, while the balance of quasi-money -- most of it time deposits -- saw a record drop ahead of the April 1 abolition of the government's full-refund guarantee on time deposits, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday.
Quasi-money is money in time deposits and other types of savings that cannot be immediately cashed in, including foreign-currency deposits and nonresidents' yen deposits.
The average daily balance of M2 -- cash in circulation, demand deposits and quasi-money -- plus certificates of deposit came to 663.6 trillion yen, compared with a revised 659.1 trillion yen in February, the BOJ said.