samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This, as I see  2  Cards can be used when paying at a distance, too, for instance for online purchases. However, the Riksbank has no confirmed statistics on these payments. 3  Examples of mobile payment services include Swish, WyWallet and SEQR. 4  Examples of payments via intermediary include PayPal, Klarna (payment by invoice) and direct payments that link you up directly with your online bank. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  it, broad acceptance of new technology solutions is a very interesting observation to which I will return shortly. The fact that so many people are using cards and other electronic payments is a form of proof that these services are widely available, not just for households but also for retailers and companies. There are more than 20 million cards in Sweden and just over two hundred thousand card terminals. Recently mobile card terminals and opportunities to accept card payments by mobile phone have also arisen. This chart, which shows how often households say they have not been able to pay by card or cash, illustrates the high level of acceptance among payees. A large majority say that they are unable to pay by either card or cash less than once a month. Close to ATMs and good Internet connections Cash should not only be possible to use in shops. Households also need to be able to withdraw cash and the retailer has to be able to deposit his daily takings.

18.05.2022  Welcoming remarks Pathways to Gender Equality in Central Banks Margarita Delgado Deputy Governor  Dear ladies and gentlemen, I feel very honored to participate in the opening of this conference co-organized with the International Economic Association, Banco de la República and Banco de España. The development of initiatives, such as this one that gives visibility to issues related to gender diversity, are key to finding solutions to the waste of talent that involves not taking this diversity into account, consequently putting economic growth at risk and depriving economies of opportunities to develop. Ensuring diversity and, in particular, gender balance, must be a priority in our organizations and, with this commitment, we work at the Banco de España, where we have made significant progress in recent years. By the end of 2021, 51% of our total staff were females, and it is noteworthy that, in one decade (since 2012), that proportion has increased in nearly 10 percentage points. More than 4 years ago, in April 2018, Banco de España joined Bank Al Maghrib, the central bank of Morocco, to organize the first international meeting between international central banks with the aim of studying and fostering female leadership in central banks.
It is thus uncertain how the total effect will be if one tries to reduce the growth of the imbalances via monetary policy. A higher interest rate than would be motivated if the risk of imbalances were not weighed in, dampens not only credit expansion and asset prices but also real demand and inflation in the short term. It is necessary to find a balance between these, even if it is based on an uncertain foundation. With regard to reducing growth in a bubble on the stock market, it may not be possible for an individual central bank in a small country to do very much, as the stock market is so internationalised. However, higher interest rates nevertheless lead to less inflated balance sheets when loans become more expensive. This may alleviate the real effects of the corrections following from a stock market bubble. With regard to subduing exaggerated price increases in the housing market, monetary policy should have a greater impact as the housing market is more local and as loans play such a major role in house price developments. History shows that mistakes have been made when one has disregarded the information provided by growth in credit and the money supply.

What we have seen is that there is a pressure on banks‘ unit margins, but that’s been compensated by volume effects – as there is more activity in the banking sector thanks to the support of monetary policy to the recovery. Nominal GDP has been better and NPLs have started to go down, and as a result banks have been able to reduce provisions. Globally you would see that the net effect of those measures so far has been positive on bank profitability. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Inflation has repeatedly undershot your forecasts… It is key for a central bank to keep inflation expectations anchored, especially in a period of slack in the economy. And we have some signals that these inflation expectations are still fragile. Is that still the case? I think it’s still the case. Long-term inflation expectations remain fragile. I never said they are de-anchored, I don’t think they are, but there are risks and this is why we are considering further action. A possible de-anchoring of inflation expectations together with a lot of slack is a dangerous cocktail. A lot of the latest wave of commodity price declines is demand related. At some point in the recent past you had a supply side issue, which is a windfall for consumers, but now a significant part is also coming from weak global conditions. Global growth this year will be the weakest since 2009. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
19 Singapore already offers an excellent ecosystem of financial institutions, professional services like legal and accounting, credit rating agencies, and market infrastructure for Asian companies to issue, market, list and trade their bonds. To make it more attractive for Asian issuers to raise international capital in Singapore and benefit from the ecosystem here, we will introduce an Asian Bond Grant scheme next year. The scheme aims to broaden the base of issuers in our bond market, which will add to the breadth and diversity of debt instruments for the 4/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  investing community. Qualifying Asian issuances will be able to offset up to 50% of one-time issuance costs such as international legal fees, arranger fees and credit rating fees. We have consulted with local market participants on various aspects of the scheme to ensure a smooth implementation. I am glad to say that the industry has been supportive of this initiative, and together we are confident that this will enhance Singapore’s value proposition. Encouraging rated issuances 20 Even as we draw Asian issuers to Singapore, we want to encourage these issuers to be rated. Credit ratings improve general market transparency by providing independent and comparable assessments of the credit worthiness of issuers. Together with business and financial information provided in the offering documents or company announcements, credit ratings can assist investors to better understand the issuer’s business and financial health.

Currently, we have a semi-automated real-time delivery versus payment (DVP) system in place. It is a stop-gap measure but it serves as an important infrastructure in the settlement of the scripless government bonds. The system, when fully developed, will be supplemented by the intraday liquidity facilities and queuing mechanism, employing the latest digital signature technology to ensure secured and smooth real-time delivery and payment transactions. We are entering an era when capital flow across borders can only become more volatile than in the past. And we still have fresh memories of how disruptive it was before the crisis. In fact, it was a major cause of the crisis. How do we go forward? How do we guard against this? The work on the new International Financial Architecture seems to be very much lacking in the area of the behavior of key players, especially the highly leveraged institutions. In the eyes of the large  3  BIS Review 30/2000  Western countries, such issues have somewhat lost their urgency since the event surrounding the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) left the headlines. In the absence of such rules, it appeared that emerging markets can only look to our own selves for protection. We have to help ourselves. A well functioning bond market is an important tool in this respect. It will act as a reservoir that absorbs capital inflow, and channel it to good use.
We at the ECB stress this new principle of “optionality”: it means in a risk-management approach that we must broaden our policy space, to be able to respond to a broader spectrum of possible inflation scenarios as Philip Lane explained in a recent interview. The trick is obviously to articulate this increased optionality whilst at the same time giving sufficient predictability to economic agents to reduce the adverse effects of uncertainty. This brings me to my second 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  point, sharing some thoughts about the ECB guidance. II. How to provide predictability and optionality for the ECB Predictability – one course and two compasses Let me start with the predictability elements: one course – the inflation target of 2% as set out in our strategy review –; and two compasses – our sequencing and our forward guidance. About the course, our commitment is crystal clear: we will do what is necessary to bring inflation back firmly and durably to around 2% within our projection horizon. This reassurance is key to keeping inflation expectations close to 2% whatever the short-term uncertainties are. We have a duty to do it, we have the capacity to do it, and have no doubt we shall do it. To keep this course, the first compass is our sequencing: we will end net asset purchases first, then raise the key interest rates, before eventually starting to reduce the balance sheet. Uncertainty and speculation about the order in which things will happen is unnecessary and easily avoidable.

Rather than forcing ourselves to act on both instruments almost simultaneously (which could fuel fears of an excessively brutal effect), we could give ourselves more time and consider the latest inflation outlook before deciding about the calendar of rate hikes: a decision that anyway we don’t need to make before our June meeting. Any speculation about this calendar of future lift-off is at this stage premature. The forward guidance on interest rates Let me stress here an important semantic point about our monetary stance: the steps I am discussing here are about the normalization of our monetary policy, not about tightening. It’s still the exit from exceptional instruments and an extremely accommodative monetary policy (increase of the already large assets stock, negative interest rates). It’s the first phase of a gradual return towards a more neutral stance, which we are still far from. Tightening would be another story, going beyond a neutral stance, which is not within our present policy horizon. Let me then remind you of the three state-dependent criteria on our forward guidance: “the Governing Council sees (i) inflation reaching 2 per cent well ahead of the end of its projection horizon; (ii) and durably for the rest of the projection horizon; and (iii) it judges that realised progress in underlying inflation is sufficiently advanced to be consistent with inflation stabilising at two per cent over the medium term”.
However, the question is whether it will be possible to generate just enough inflation and then stop, or whether it will be impossible to shut the floodgates once the flow of money has started to reach full force. There are also interesting technicalities that differ from country to country that could be decisive for whether helicopter money could work differently to normal loan-financed fiscal policy stimulation measures. Does the central bank pay interest on central bank reserves and can cash be redeemed against these on a one-to-one basis? If prices do not increase one-to-one with the increase in the banknote volume (electronic or paper), a proportion of the increase in the banknote volume will closely resemble a debt increase, as the Riksbank will pay interest on this in the future. 18  Abolishing cash – or manner a negative interest rate on it Another suggestion from the literature focuses on the reason the lower bound for the policy rate exists, namely the existence of a risk-free asset with a return of 0 – cash. If interest rates become negative enough, households (in the case of the banks’ deposit rates) or the banks (in the case of the central bank’s deposit rates) will instead withdraw cash. Consequently, it is not possible to cut the level of interest rates indefinitely.

When the couple reaches the age of 70, they are entitled to a non-means tested Old Age Allowance of $ $ x 2) provided by the Government. So this couple will be receiving up to $ (or $ per month or around $ (or $ per year, and have the benefit of being able to stay in their own property, for life. Compared with the median income of two-person households in Hong Kong of $ (or $ per month,1 this guaranteed monthly payout of $ would really help support a decent retirement life and protect the retirees from highly volatile market risks and from increasingly high longevity risk. Conclusion 9. I would like to conclude by making the following observations: The Reverse Mortgage Programme and the Life Annuity Scheme, when combined, will create an economic outcome similar to a life pension. This self-made pension is (a) a market based solution to provide steady cash flows for life by liquefying the fixed and financial assets accumulated by the retirees during their working life. The schemes are commercially and financially viable and will therefore not involve Government subsidies; 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  The launch of the Life Annuity Scheme has helped promote the annuity market in Hong Kong, which has up till now been rather underdeveloped. In 2016, the annuity business only accounted for less than 2% of all long-term insurance business of (b) private insurers in Hong Kong.
Private nonfinancial sector credit grew by an average of 10% a year in the 20 year period before the crisis. Looked at through another lens, the level of indebtedness, the aggregate debt to income level of UK households is around 135%, some way below its crisis level of 160%. It dropped sharply after the crisis and has hovered around its current level for the last few years. But though it is below its pre-crisis level, it is again high by historical standards; average household debt to income between 1990 and 2006 was 110%. It also remains high by international standards; household debt to income is around 85% in Germany, 110% in the United States and 120% in Spain. Putting all of these high-level aggregate indicators together, the level of credit in the economy is beginning to grow again. It is not at pre-crisis levels and indeed looks below averages that include the long build-up of credit in the economy before the crisis. But if you look further back, it is high by historical standards. And it is high by international standards. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The high-level picture, of course, can only tell you so much. It is clear that important though they are, these high-level indicators cannot be linked mechanically to the assessment of risk or to action to address it.

A third will be how far in advance one needs to act. If you thought that the impact of changes in the CCB happened with a lag, that there were benefits in a CCB above zero that could be relaxed, that risks were building or that there were benefits to moving policy gradually, these would point to moving earlier rather than later in the cycle. This approach is intended to maintain the resilience of the system over the cycle. But, clearly, requiring banks to hold more capital will very probably also have a dampening effect, leaning against the cycle. The third approach to time varying macroprudential policy I mentioned would take this further. It would set policy with the explicit objective of pushing back on the cycle until the level and perhaps the composition of credit was judged to be more acceptable in risk terms. This of course would be a bigger “call” for the macroprudential authority than targeting resilience. Again it requires a very careful assessment of costs and benefits. I do not think the macroprudential policy framework should “start” there; the starting point should be maintaining resilience. But given the history and the objective of maintaining financial stability, I do not think that the macroprudential authority can foreswear making such calls when necessary. Indeed, the FPC has implicitly already done this in taking action on the flow of high loan to income mortgages.
The board must also be conscious that it is the owner’s representative – its loyalty must lie with the principal. If this emphasis is misplaced, it can damage the position of the fund in the public consciousness. Finally, I would like to underscore the importance of preserving cost-effective investment management. In the course of 20 years, Norges Bank has built up a competent investment management organisation. Considerable economies of scale have been realised – investment management costs are low. The level of management costs over time is particularly important for the owner’s net return. We must keep the GPFG’s management costs at a low level, regardless of whether the fund remains within the Bank or is organised outside the Bank. Norges Bank concurs with Central Bank Law Commission in that neither the fund nor its management tasks should be divided among several entities. This will raise management costs. Any gains, however, would be difficult to come by. Conclusion Norway has managed its petroleum resources well. We have set aside wealth for the future and have created a stable institutional framework for the management of the country’s savings. In the 6/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  quotation I began with, the Prime Minister points out that Norway has also been somewhat lucky. Oil and gas prices were high during a period where production was also substantial. Luck is hardly a permanent condition. Oil prices are now far below the levels prevailing just a few years ago.

It was therefore natural that an existing institution with systems and expertise for managing the country’s foreign exchange reserves was chosen to perform this task. It may be said that the fund was thought of as a savings account that the government opened at Norges Bank, alongside the government’s ordinary sight deposit account. 1/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  Chart: A large fund The return on this savings account has so far been good. Since the beginning of 1998, the fund has achieved an average annual return of 6 percent. In NOK terms, the total return came to more than NOK 3 800 billion at the end of September 2017. The return has been around ¼ percentage point higher than the return on the fund’s benchmark index. The annual real return has been 4 percent. Management costs have been low. Over time, they have fallen as percentage of assets under management down to 0.06 percent annually at present. Governance model and governance principles The Central Bank Law Commission has considered alternatives for the future organisation of the GPFG. Before I comment on the Commission’s conclusions, I would like to speak briefly about the current governance model and the interaction between the Storting, the Ministry and Norges Bank. Chart: Governance structure The legislative basis is decided by the Storting, while the Ministry of Finance lays down a management mandate that is issued to Norges Bank. Moreover, the Ministry has established a practice whereby decisive changes are submitted to the Storting for approval.
To sum up the international picture: over the past year, growth prospects have been lowered for all the large advanced regions. In Europe, activity is likely to decline this year owing to debt problems and fiscal tightening. Unemployment is on the rise. Fiscal and monetary policy space is limited, or virtually exhausted. Many countries must tighten fiscal policy to reduce debt to a sustainable level. Central banks have responded by communicating that interest rates will be held low for an extended period. And they have stretched the limits of monetary policy to counteract a deeper and more persistent downturn. Chart: GDP growth The economic situation in our external surrounding environment stands in contrast to that of Norway. Domestic activity is particularly high in the oil industry and construction sector, and both employment and the supply of labour are on the increase. Unemployment remains low and stable. Public finances are healthy. Norway’s terms of trade are favourable, with high export prices and low import prices. At the same time, house prices and household debt are still rising. Nonetheless, the Norwegian economy is not unaffected by the turbulence abroad. Developments in Europe and a strong krone exchange rate are adversely affecting some Norwegian export industries, such as the paper, metal, and furniture industries. While other countries have used nontraditional instruments, we have managed to come through by using our main instrument – the key policy rate – which is now 1.5 per cent.

Project Greenback 2.0 is indeed an experiment which allows us to seek answers to the questions that we never understood before. These include the motivation behind the migrant workers for not choosing the formal remittance channels and their propensity to use digital financial services. We have made good progress in understanding these issues. But that is not enough. We wish to understand more about how remittances can be further leveraged to fight poverty. This includes developing greater understanding into: How remittances can be linked to insurance and investment products which would help to break the vicious cycle of poverty; How digital payment and remittances can be used as a tool to support the needs of small rural businesses; From education perspective, how to channel remittances to support provision of quality education for poor children; and From gender perspective, how we can use remittances to drive women entrepreneurships particularly in the era of digital economy. Moving forward, these are the areas that we will continue to explore; and in doing so I have no doubt that there will be more opportunities for all of us to work together again. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches