The Bank of Japan made a significant step toward shrinking its massive balance sheet last week, while market watchers were fixated on the biggest interest rate increase from the central bank in 18 years.

The BOJ decided on Friday to offer no new lending from July under its fund-provisioning program to stimulate bank lending. The program’s outstanding loans stood at ¥77 trillion ($496 billion) as of Jan. 20, accounting for around 10.4% of the central bank’s overall balance sheet, according to BOJ data.

The phasing out of the loan program underscores BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda’s determination to slowly but steadily proceed with the normalization of policy after more than a decade of radical monetary easing.