samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
But others are also arising as a result of this crisis. The globalisation of production The crisis has highlighted some of the vulnerabilities associated with globalisation and the risks arising from protectionism. Set against this, Spain should play a leading role in defence of a global trade model, based on multilateral rules and free competition. Let us not forget that Spain has increased its external openness very significantly, which is essential for our growth but also makes us more sensitive to any reversal in international trade. Digitalisation  9  The crisis might also accelerate the ongoing digitalisation of the economy. It has demonstrated the possibilities of remote working, whose use in Spain was limited prior to this crisis. Developing teleworking will mean its positive aspects must be boosted and its shortcomings mitigated. In particular, there is evidence that, if the right conditions are not in place, remote working productivity might be lower than that involving workplace attendance. Training policies are thus needed enabling the employment opportunities arising as a result of the more intense use of teleworking to be harnessed. Headway in e-commerce during the lockdown, building on its extraordinary growth in recent years, might step up in the future. In that case, it will be essential to understand its implications in terms of business competition and price dynamics, and, if it were necessary, to pursue measures minimising any potential adverse effects. 4.8.

We will continue to be actively involved in the finalisation of the international reforms. The combined package of national and international reforms represents a decisive step in the process of resolving the ‘too big to fail’ issue in Switzerland. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Domestically focused banks: adequate resilience, despite substantial increase in mortgage exposure This brings me to the domestically focused banks. For these banks, whose activity centres on Swiss lending and deposit-taking business, I would like to highlight three developments. First, these banks’ risk exposure to the Swiss mortgage and residential real estate markets rose markedly in 2015, with their mortgage lending volume growing at a similarly robust pace as in the previous year. In addition, they further increased their affordability risk and interest rate risk exposure from maturity transformation, against a background of slightly higher imbalances on the mortgage and residential real estate markets. Second, in 2015, these banks’ interest rate margins stabilised at a low level, after having fallen steadily and significantly since the start of the low interest rate period at end-2008. This stabilisation is remarkable, given that pressure on interest rate margins continued last year. Swiss money and capital market rates fell once again in 2015. At the same time, the interest paid by banks on customer deposits remained largely unchanged. Thus, the difference between these two interest rates – the liability margin – narrowed further.
The banks are still operating under capital controls, and they have limited access to foreign funding. At this point, when the First Review of the economic programme of the Government and the IMF appears imminent, it is timely to begin lifting the capital controls. As the economy and financial system are rebuilt and conditions improve on the global markets, we expect that the Republic of Iceland will have access to foreign credit markets once again, and that the banks will follow in its wake. At that point, it will be more important than it is now to decide to what extent Icelandic financial institutions will be allowed to engage in international banking operations. In a sense, the financial crisis represented a run on such operations. The crisis revealed clearly the contradiction between the internationalisation of finance, on the one hand, and national supervision and safety nets, on the other. The problem was particularly prominent in the case of the EEA regulatory framework, which had gone farther in lifting restrictions on crossborder banking activities than was the case in many other parts of the world. In this context and others, it is important to bear in mind that international or pan-European regulatory provisions represent minimum requirements. Iceland and other nations may need to adapt those provisions to the specific risks that they face. In some areas, this may imply more stringent capital adequacy and liquidity requirements, or special restrictions on financial undertakings’ activities.

One of the roles of the Parliamentary Special Investigative Commission is to compile information on these topics and present an analysis of them. The Central Bank neither has the capacity nor the will to front-run that analysis. The Bank will probably need to revise its operational practices in these areas in view of experience and the Commission’s findings, as will other supervisory institutions. In addition, the Bank will soon review its precautionary rules, such as those pertaining to financial institutions’ liquidity and foreign exchange balance, in light of recent events. Various elements of payment intermediation and settlement will also be reviewed in the near future, with the aim of promoting financial stability more effectively. Because of the uncertainty still surrounding assets, capitalisation, and ownership of Icelandic financial undertakings, it is difficult to assess the main risks in Iceland’s financial system at this time. However, those risks are clearly related to asset quality, on the one hand, and foreign exchange and indexation mismatches, on the other. For this reason, among others, it is important that financial institutions maintain capital adequacy ratios well above the statutory minimum in the near future. At present, deposits form the backbone of the banks’ funding, as foreign investment in Iceland and access to global credit markets are limited. Lifting the capital controls entails a certain risk, partly because it involves liberalising capital flows while the ownership structure of the banks is still being clarified.
During recent episodes of market volatility which saw substantial capital outflows by foreign portfolio investors, insurance companies were among the large domestic institutional investors that provided stability to the market. Indeed, the insurance has become an important component in the Malaysian market in contributing towards the growth of bond and sukuk markets. Low penetration signals opportunities for insurers There is no doubt that the industry has come a long way. This journey has been made possible with the commitment of many in this room today who have led their various institutions to greater heights, and who understood and supported the reforms introduced in the industry over the last two and half decades were critical to take the industry to a new  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  level of maturity. It was painful but necessary. The fruits of the various reforms we made are for all to see. The industry is now more resilient and robust. Over the last 4 decades together, we had laid a strong foundation for the insurance industry to grow even larger. Therefore, our aspirations for the industry ought to be more ambitious. Under the Government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), a penetration level of 75% by 2020 has been set as a goal for the industry. After two decades of steady growth, the current level of insurance and takaful penetration, at 54%, still remains below targeted level. While this ratio is in no way flattering, it also reflects the enormous untapped potential in the Malaysian insurance sector.

Medical inflation has been on a rising trend with millions of ringgit spent in Malaysia on healthcare expenditure each year. Old age and urban poverty are also on the rise with many exhausting their lifetime savings within the first five years of retirement. These are structural issues that have deep implications on the industry. It should be discussed and debated intelligently. To my mind, the focus of debate therefore should be on how to improve the productivity of agents, and ensure that they are well supported through training and continuing professional development and given all the assistance to provide quality advice and services to the public. More should be done to educate consumers on the benefits of insurance and the advantages of purchasing insurance while one is young and healthy. In this regard, the industry should come together and address the reasons for the low take up of annuity products despite the tax relief and incentives provided by the Government in 2012. Initiatives should be pursued to expand affordable product offerings for lower income groups that are most vulnerable to income shocks or unanticipated expenditures. Another area that is becoming significant because of medical inflation is ensuring that medical and health insurance provides adequate protection and remains affordable through well designed products, proper underwriting and effective control of claims costs should be a priority. The issues I had outlined are formidable and these cannot be accomplished without concerted effort by all of us here.
In this period, countries with relatively stable financial markets and lower deterioration in risk premia had more room for maneuver in their monetary policy implementations enabling them to make larger policy rate reductions. Raised awareness regarding the relative soundness of Turkey’s financial system in this period, coupled with the expected decline in inflation, set the ground for rapid and bold rate cuts. Acting accordingly, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey lowered policy rates more than any other emerging market central bank operating within an inflation targeting framework (Figure 12). BIS Review 103/2009  7  Figure 12: Change in Policy Rates of Developing Countries and the Relationship between Policy Rates and Risk Premium Change in Policy Rates (Percent, 1 Sep 08 - 24 July 09)  0.5  Change in Risk Premium and Policy Rates 2 (1 Sep 08- 24 July 09)  -0.5  0  1.5  Macaristan  Change in Policy Rates (Percent)  -1.5  -2  -2.5 -3.5  -4  -4.5 -5.5  Rusya Romanya Malezya Çek Endonezy Cumh. Tayland a Peru Polonya G.Kore Meksika Brezilya G.Afrika Kolombiya  -6  -6.5  -8  -7.5 Turkey Chile Columbia South Brazil Israel Mexico South Peru Poland Thailand Iceland Taiwan Indonesi China Czech Malaysia Romania Ukraine Russia Hungary  -8.5  -10 -100  Şili Türkiye  -50 0 50 100 150 Change in CDS (basis points)  200  Source: Bloomberg and CBRT.

Figure 24: Composition Unemployment  of  the  Change  in  Non-Agricultural  (Seasonally adjusted, Quarterly Difference, Thousand People) Participation to Labor Market Change in Employment Net Change in Unemployment  500 400 300 200 100 0 -100 -200 -300 1  2  3 2007  4  1  2  3 2008  4  1 2009  Source: TURKSTAT, CBRT. Recent data include signs of partial recovery in domestic demand conditions and economic activity in line with the policy rate cut cycle, accompanied by the financial measures (Figure 25). However, the negative effects of uncertainties in aggregate demand and low capacity utilization rates on investments and employment are expected to last in the upcoming period as well. Besides, high levels of unemployment are expected to restrict private consumption expenditures. In addition to these, considering the ongoing partial tightness in financial conditions, the Central Bank considers that the uncertainties pertaining to the strength and endurance of the recent partial revival in demand may not yet have come to an end.
People say: “things are looking down, so we'd better not spend,” so nobody spends, and it is this same public who, some time later, say: “I told you, things were looking down.” However, in this case, the loss of confidence has been definitely well-grounded on the relentless crisis the world is currently undergoing, but whose effects are being in turn worsened by this same loss of confidence. Confidence crises are hard to fight by using just traditional tools of economic policy. Confidence indicators of households and companies should bounce back up as months go by, as a result of sustainable and credible expansionary macroeconomic policies and objective communication about reality. In Chile, particularly, we are able to face this negative international scenario, thanks to our healthy economy and expansionary policies. BIS Review 41/2009  5  In our January monetary policy report (IPoM), we forecasted that, in the most probable scenario, the Chilean economy would grow between 2 and 3% this year. In such scenario, it was estimated that the GDP of our trade partners would grow 0.4%; however, after all the past months’ corrections, this figure is now estimated to have turned into a more than 1% decrease. As I said at the beginning, this is a major change of scenario, which will certainly affect the growth projections of our economy.

In short, this abundant liquidity, induced by an expansionary monetary policy and an increase in savings among emerging economies, particularly in Asia, has boosted a housing bubble. However, although it was a component of the imbalances which had built up before the outbreak of the crisis, it certainly was not the main cause; rather, such main cause is more related to the functioning of the financial system. That is, with the same path of monetary policy and global balances of savings and investment, an adequate risk assessment system could have averted the crisis or, at least, reduced its very large current scope. Evolution of inflation During most of 2008, concerns about the global economic scenario were split between how to tackle the first effects of the housing bubble burst, mainly affecting the developed world, and, how to deal with the significant increase in inflation. Since the beginning of this process, in the first half of 2007, we argued that its origin was related to factors which had nothing to do with the domestic business cycle, such as prices of food and fuels at international markets and adverse climatic conditions which favored major rises in the cost of electric power. During said year, prices of non perishable foods rose by 15% and prices of fruits and vegetables rose by over 30%, as compared to annual 2% average increases and 2% average decreases for both categories in the 2000-2006 period, respectively. Fuel prices rose by 15% in 2007.
One way of subduing the effect on the trend of variations in individual years is to estimate the trend as a mean value of the period's actual growth. This procedure gives a trend growth of 2 per cent, which I have also indicated in the diagram. If one believes that the truth lies somewhere midway between the growth rates we had before and after the changeover in our economic policy, one can instead calculate the mean value of the mean values during the periods 1980-1992 and 1993 onwards. The result is then 2.2 per cent. No procedure is perfect, of course. As I mentioned initially, the estimate results vary significantly depending on which method is applied and this is one of the reasons why the Riksbank has chosen not to specify an exact figure for potential growth. We have instead chosen to work with an interval of 2 to 2.5 per cent, which has emerged gradually as we have endeavoured to refine our analyses and improve our knowledge. The interval indicates that we have been influenced by the strong growth figures during the latter part of the 1990s, but that we have been cautious in stipulating to any great degree our assessments of some form of "new economy". A further reason for not specifying potential growth in more detail than this is that new information is received continuously and this affects our assessment.

2 The pattern of bad behavior did not end with the financial crisis, but continued despite the considerable public sector intervention that was necessary to stabilize the financial system. As a consequence, the financial industry has largely lost the public trust. To illustrate, a 2012 Harris poll found that 42 percent of people responded either “somewhat” or “a lot” to the statement that Wall Street “harms the country”; furthermore, 68 percent disagreed with the statement: “In general, people on Wall Street are as honest and moral as other people.” I reject the narrative that the current state of affairs is simply the result of the actions of isolated rogue traders or a few bad actors within these firms. As James O’Toole and Warren Bennis observed in their Harvard Business Review article about corporate culture: “Ethical problems in organizations originate not with ‘a few bad apples’ but with the ‘barrel makers’.” 3 That is, the problems originate from the culture of the firms, and this culture is largely shaped by the firms’ leadership. This means that the solution needs to originate from within the firms, from their leaders. What do I mean by the culture within a firm? Culture relates to the implicit norms that guide behavior in the absence of regulations or compliance rules – and sometimes despite those explicit restraints. Culture exists within every firm whether it is recognized or ignored, whether it is nurtured or neglected, and whether it is embraced or disavowed. Culture reflects the prevailing attitudes and behaviors within a firm.
The industrial companies tried to make use of their promised loan facilities with the banks, but the banks were not able to lend money as usual. This resulted in a credit gridlock, which severely limited the access to loans. The problems spread from the United States to Europe and the European credit system also essentially ceased functioning. This meant that the Swedish banks and the Swedish financial system also suffered problems. BIS Review 149/2008  1  …followed by countermeasures and stabilisation In this situation governments, central banks and other authorities were forced to intervene to avoid a collapse in the global financial system. Without these measures the financial markets would most probably have ceased functioning – things were so serious. The measures have taken different forms in different countries, but two main types can be identified. The first is that the banks have been offered risk capital or other guarantees so that they can survive the crisis. The aim is to avoid more defaults like Lehman Brothers occurring when the financial market is so vulnerable. Those who lend money to a bank should be able to feel certain that the bank will still be there when it is time to repay the loan. The second type of measure is that the central banks have continuously supplied the banks with the short and medium-term loans they have not been able to obtain in the usual way on the market.

Putting all of the responsibility on monetary policy would probably mean such high interest rates that they would have seriously negative repercussions for the real economy. Moreover, the argument remains that it is difficult to determine when a credit boom changes from being beneficial for growth to becoming a risk that can trigger a financial crisis. I nevertheless think that the crisis has taught us that when we conduct monetary policy we must also follow a number of variables that are linked to the build-up of risk in the financial markets, primarily credit growth in different sectors of the economy. The fact that monetary policy alone cannot prevent financial crises does not mean that we can only look at an inflation target and otherwise disregard what a long period of low interest rates may entail with regard to risks in the financial system. This is also the view the Riksbank has expressed  BIS Review 149/2008  5  in recent years, occasionally, one must say under strong criticism from both academics and various other parties in society. Monetary policy can alleviate the consequences of the financial crisis The financial crisis has meant that the focus normally placed on monetary policy has been transferred to the measures taken to safeguard financial stability. Monetary policy cannot be used to resolve acute problems in the financial markets. This requires a different type of measure, as I have already described. What role can monetary policy then play in the current situation?
In our role as central bank of issue for the euro, we focus solely on the interplay between central clearing and our monetary mandate. Let me clarify this by highlighting three channels through which central clearing interacts with core central bank objectives. First, CCPs play a key role in the euro money market, which is essential for monetary policy transmission. In the EU, 70% of repos are cleared through a CCP, making repo CCPs critically important to this market. CCPs also act as major repo counterparties when reinvesting the large amounts of collateral they collect. Disruptions affecting, or caused by, a CCP can have ripple effects through the euro repo market, which may affect the conduct of monetary policy. The ECB therefore has a clear and legitimate interest in preventing or mitigating such disruptions. Second, CCPs are financial market hubs connecting banks as well as other market infrastructures, including payment systems. As a result, large payment flows are settled on a daily basis between CCPs and their participants. Deficiencies in CCP financial risk management can transfer liquidity strains to banks, thereby affecting both their capacity to extend credit to firms and households and their reliance on the provision of central bank liquidity, not least as banks are key participants in large-value payment systems operated by central banks. Moreover, given the growth of central clearing and the promotion of settlement in central bank money, cleared markets themselves increasingly rely on these payment systems.

Nina Stoyanova: The future of money Speech by Ms Nina Stoyanova, Deputy Governor and Head of the Banking Department of the Bulgarian National Bank, at the Manager Magazine Fourth Banking and Finance Forum “The Future of Money”, Sofia, 20 October 2021. * * * Thank you for inviting me to open today’s fourth Banking and Finance Forum on the topic ofThe Future of Money. New technologies are changing the financial sector today and leading to the offering of increasingly diverse and convenient payment products in a highly competitive environment. The policies of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and national regulators are aimed at catalysing this process, to exploit more fully the potential offered by technology and to achieve cheaper, safer and more accessible payment solutions. The dynamics of the processes in Europe is also fully valid for our country. Data on payments processed by payment systems in our country show a significant growth. For the first six months of 2021, the value of payments made through the BNB-operated Real-time Gross Settlement System in BGN (RINGS) increased by 30% compared to the first half of 2020, while for the same period the value of payments in euro through the national component system of the large-value payment system in euro – TARGET2-BNB increased by 65.7%. I would like to touch briefly on some of the recent technological developments in the field of payment services in the European Union and in our country.