The yen weakened, falling toward 100 per dollar for the first time since April 2009, after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he was emboldened to press ahead with a campaign to defeat deflation.

Japan's currency dropped against 14 of its 16 major counterparts after the Group of 20 offered no opposition to the central bank's monetary stimulus policies at a meeting last week in Washington. Sweden's krona strengthened after Riksbank Deputy Governor Lars E.O. Svensson said he will leave the central bank after failing to get support for deeper interest-rate cuts. The euro rose for a third day versus the yen after Giorgio Napolitano was re-elected to a second term as Italian president.

“The G-20 gave a green light to sell the yen,” Kiran Kowshik, a currency strategist at BNP Paribas SA in London, said in a telephone interview. “The focus now is on what a lot of the Japanese investor base is doing in the new fiscal year.”