The yen rose Monday despite moves by Japan's central bank aimed at containing its soaring currency and reviving its faltering economy.

The bank announced a new six-month low-interest loan program to financial institutions.

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa speaks to reporters Monday. The yen rose despite the bank's attempt to ease monetary policy in response to a strong yen. (Koji Sasahara/Associated Press)

Combined with an existing three-month operation worth $236.4 billion US, banks will now have access to a total of $355-billion.

The central bank's policy board also kept its key interest rate at a super-low 0.1 per cent.

The move to bring down market interest rates and increase the money supply wasn't enough to impress foreign exchange traders.

The yen strengthened 0.6 per cent to 84.73 to the dollar.

A strong currency makes the price of Japanese exports less competitive, erodes the value of earnings made by Japanese firms once their profits are converted back into yen and threatens Japan's tepid economic recovery.

Richard Jerram, head of Asian economics at Macquarie Securities, described the Bank of Japan's decision as a "helpless, hopeless policy."

"There seems to a sense of fatalism," Jerram said in a report Monday. "The BOJ continues to play the same old game of making incremental, but ultimately meaningless, policy change in response to political pressure."

The moves by the Bank of Japan were spurred by last week's decline in the U.S. dollar to a 15-year low of 83.61 yen.

With files from The Associated Press