TOKYO, Sept 21 (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan on Wednesday decided to adopt a target for long-term interest rates in an overhaul of its massive stimulus programme.

The BOJ maintained the 0.1 percent negative interest rate it applies to some of the excess reserves that financial institutions park with the central bank.

But it abandoned its base money target and instead set a “yield curve control” under which it will buy long-term government bonds to keep 10-year bond yields around current levels of zero percent.

The BOJ said it would continue to buy long-term government bonds at a pace so that the balance of its holdings increases by 80 trillion yen ($781 billion) per year. ($1 = 102.4100 yen) (Reporting by Leika Kihara, Stanley White, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Minami Funakoshi; Editing by Chris Gallagher and Chang-Ran Kim)