The Bank of Japan flagged rising upside inflation risks with one member pointing to a possible acceleration of the pace of interest rate hikes in a summary of opinions from its July meeting.

“Given that underlying CPI inflation has been approaching 2% and greater consideration should be given to upside risks to prices than before, it could be considered that the pace of policy interest rate hikes will be faster than market expectations,” one of the nine board members said, according to a summary from the July 30-31 meeting released Monday.

At the meeting, the BOJ held its policy rate at 1% and signaled it could possibly raise it in September, saying it’s closely watching the impact of the weak yen on prices and growth. The decision came right after Japanese authorities stepped into the foreign exchange market to support the yen with help from their U.S. counterparts.

Japan’s currency weakened to a 40-year low against the dollar last month, stoking concerns over import-driven inflation in Japan and risks to global financial market stability.

Only one of the nine board members, Hajime Takata, called for a back-to-back raise last month. Still, Gov. Kazuo Ueda took a generally hawkish tone at his post-decision press briefing, emphasizing that he sees greater upside risks to the price outlook.

The summary doesn’t disclose who said what at the gathering.

As the BOJ considers the timing and pace of further rate hikes, it needs to carefully examine the impact of factors such as the Middle East situation, AI-related demand and developments in foreign exchange rates, one member said in the summary.

“In doing so, the current phase calls for due attention to upside risks to the underlying trend in prices,” the member said.

The BOJ must demonstrate its determination to prevent upward inflation deviations as the global environment turns to a phase of rate hikes, according to one BOJ board member.

The BOJ “needs to adopt a nimble approach in response to factors such as changes in overseas financial conditions and to discuss the size of a rate hike, rather than adhering to a certain pace of rate hikes,” the member said.

One BOJ board member said even if the precise neutral interest rate can’t be determined, the BOJ needs to raise the policy interest rate, which is below the lower bound of the broadly estimated range, “in order to set a foundation for the normalization of monetary policy and to ensure the nimbleness of policy decisions.”

The BOJ has estimated that the neutral level is somewhere between 1.1% and 2.5%.