samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Øystein Olsen: Launch of the new 50-krone and 500-krone banknotes Speech by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at RS Noatun, Horten, 18 October 2018. * * * More information on the banknotes are available on Norges Bank's website. Good morning. It is a great pleasure to be here in Horten and Noatun to mark this important occasion for Norges Bank. On 30 May 2017, we went to Lofoten to launch the new 100-krone and 200-krone banknotes – the first two denominations in Norway’s new banknote series. Today, we are in Horten to celebrate the launch of the new 50-krone and 500-krone banknotes. So why did we choose Horten? This is an easy question to answer. The primary motif of the new 500-krone banknote is a rescue lifeboat. Since its foundation in 1891, the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue has saved more than 6 000 lives at sea. Through their tremendous efforts, largely based on volunteer work, the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue has contributed to making Norway’s coastline safer and more prosperous. Many of the lifeboat crews are trained where we are today, here at RS Noatun. These crews are on stand-by around the clock to assist people and vessels along the entire Norwegian coast. The boat you can see on the front of the 500-krone banknote is the lifeboat RS 14 Stavanger, launched in 1901.

According to the survey of damages from the earthquake and tsunami delivered by the government on March 23, the cost to replace the destroyed capital stock amounts to 20.94 billion US dollars. Following the reasoning described above, this figure is the equivalent to the gross value of the lost capital stock. How then can we estimate the net value of the capital destroyed? Estimates in our national accounts indicate that between the years 2000 and 2008 the net value of the capital stock was around 63 percent of the gross stock. Applying this percentage directly, we estimate that the damage to the net capital stock, consistent with the figure disclosed by the government, is 13.2 billion US dollars. If we consider that the net capital stock amounted in 2009 to an estimated 435 billion US dollars, the aforementioned loss is equivalent to nearly 3 percent of the total. Therefore, given a loss of 3 percent in the net capital stock, the Board estimates that during this year the level of trend GDP will fall 1.0% to 1.5% because of the catastrophe. The magnitude of the short-term impact of the natural disaster depends on the share in national GDP of the hardest hit regions, the sectoral composition of production by region and the duration of downtime in productive processes, among other factors. In 2008, Regions VI, VII and VIII produced nearly 16% of national GDP, mostly concentrated in the manufacturing sector. As for the labour market, the three regions generate almost one fifth of national employment.
New financial sector regulation (I am referring to the CRR/CRD and the forthcoming BRRD) and single banking supervision will add new aspects and new partners to Nordic-Baltic cooperation. The goal of harmonisation of cross-border regulatory and supervisory practices is to create an operating environment for banks and other financial institutions that fosters mutual trust and helps ensure that the provision of financial services is continuous and satisfies the needs of the real economy. When the SSM becomes operational, it will have important effects on the routine supervisory work in the Nordic-Baltic region. The home countries of several subsidiaries that will be included under direct supervision by the SSM/ECB will probably remain outside the SSM. This presents a new challenge for the Nordic-Baltic cooperation framework. In the light of the success of our regional cooperation it is rational that we build the new principles of supervision on the existing foundation wherever possible. I hope and believe that in this new and more complex framework we will be able to preserve an important value – the spirit of cooperation. In view of the development of the single market it is also important that the building of the banking union be completed – the SSM must be followed by the SRM. Ideally, this would create the balance between rights and responsibilities which has been the guiding principle in safeguarding cross-border financial stability for nearly a decade.

There are differences in economic, lending and asset price cycles, and there are also differences in economic history, crisis experience and institutional arrangements. The developments in recent years have exacerbated these dissimilarities and perhaps even created new ones. It appears to me that the success in combining the positive aspects of diversity and integration in the Nordic-Baltic region may serve as a model for the European Union. If cooperation and coordination has been possible in this region, there is reason to hope for the same in the European Union as a whole. Cooperation between the institutions responsible for financial stability in the region has a history of over 10 years. This cooperation has become considerably closer since the outbreak of the global financial crisis and the reversal of capital flows in our countries. Routine work is done in supervisory colleges, and there are high-level multilateral groups for coordinating macro-prudential supervision and crisis management. It has been very important that trust and open communication as well as mutual support and a willingness to take responsibility have remained in place when the financial stability of a Nordic-Baltic country is really at stake. A shared understanding of the need to deal with macroeconomic and financial stability risks at a national level has provided a solid foundation for Nordic-Baltic cooperation. 2014 will bring new challenges for Europe The year 2014 will bring new challenges.
Our policy was guided by monetary targets until the end of the 1990s, and only recently, like most central banks, have we shifted our focus to price stability more directly. I would like to share with you some of the lessons we have learned from that period with flexible exchange rates and, in particular, review our recent experience of living on the edge of the euro area. Living on the edge of the euro area As you can imagine, the introduction of the euro in January 1999 constituted a sort of revolution in our monetary environment. For the first time in our history, we are now surrounded by a single currency area, which also happens to be the destination of 60% of our exports. In fact, our situation, in terms of economic power, can be compared to that of the State of Massachusetts in the United States. Can you imagine the State of Massachusetts having its own currency? The natural question is: How do we come to the conclusion that monetary independence is still desirable? Indeed, given our geographical position, we, Swiss, frequently have to explain why we decided not to adopt the euro or not to peg our currency to the euro, as Denmark has done. The first question I would like to address today is therefore: What are the advantages for Switzerland of retaining its national currency, as opposed to adopting the euro? I will then look at the conditions that are necessary for successful monetary autonomy.

Prior to the decisions made in March and in the weeks that followed, the Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Committee met frequently, often at short notice. On 12 March, we decided to cut the policy rate by 0.50 percentage point. The countercyclical capital buffer requirement was reduced the day after, helping banks to absorb losses and still have the capacity to provide credit. A week later, we reduced the rate further to 0.25 percent. And at the May monetary policy meeting, we took a step further and reduced the policy rate to zero. The Committee also stated that in its current assessment of the outlook for the economy and the balance of risks, the policy rate would most likely remain at today’s level for some time ahead. With a policy rate close to zero, there is a limit to how much further it can be lowered. Other 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  countries have experienced that policy rates can continue to have an impact at slightly below zero, but it is uncertain how negative rates will influence the economy and financial markets, particularly in the current situation. The Committee stated at the monetary policy meeting in May that it is now of particular importance to ensure well-functioning financial markets. The Committee does not envisage making further policy rate cuts. Low interest rates cannot prevent a severe downturn, but can help dampen the decline in activity.
The pick-up in economic activity in the United Kingdom has been sharper than in the United States and, according to most analysts, it appears to be underpinned by sounder foundations. Inflation is holding on a path consistent with the target of 2% and it should also be borne in mind that the prices of certain assets, housing in particular, have been moving on a rising trend and have reignited debate on the role the central bank and its monetary policy should play in preventing potential bubbles. Here, although the Bank of England has not yet modified its accommodative monetary policy stance either, the prevailing expectations are already discounting a more or less immediate change. The latest messages from the Bank of England suggest, in any event, that when rates begin to rise they will do so very gradually, remaining below historical values for a lengthy period. The monetary policy of the Bank of Japan The differences are even more marked in the case of the Bank of Japan. Nor can we forget that, prior to the international crisis, the Japanese economy had not overcome the effects of its own domestic crisis which began in the 1990s following a substantial credit boom and a burgeoning real estate bubble. The various economic programmes implemented since have not managed to put the Japanese economy back on a stable growth path, illustrating the difficulty involved in restoring normality when an economy enters a perverse cycle of deflation and contraction of activity.

However, beyond the banking sector’s response, if society is to derive maximum benefit from digitalisation while minimising the costs of the transition, I believe that a comprehensive response is required from the public authorities. A response which surely transcends the financial sphere, to which the financial authorities can no doubt make an important contribution. That is why we are going to focus precisely on improving digital skills in the coming years using, for example, the Financial Education Plan launched jointly by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  Digital Transformation, the CNMV and the Banco de España. Because we are fully aware that digital literacy is also part of our financial education. That is also why the Banco de España has long identified the economic and population differences in urban and rural areas (also in terms of access to general services and, more specifically, to banking services) as phenomena that warrant priority analytical attention. Such analysis must provide the basis for informed decision-making. Our most recent annual report, presented before Parliament last year, included a chapter dedicated to these issues. In the coming months we shall present the findings of several studies which examine in depth the phenomenon of financial exclusion in relation to digitalisation processes. Specifically, we are going to present a comparative study of access to cash in Spain and in other euro area countries, focusing particularly on the differences between rural and urban areas.
However, one interesting question is what effect the change in population structure will have on savings and on the securities markets in a few years time, when those of us born in the 1940s retire. We are a fairly large group from the baby boom years. The life cycle hypothesis assumes that we will sell large parts of our assets, which will lead to negative net savings. However, some studies indicate that pensioners may not consume their capital to the extent assumed. And of course, some people actually have something left to pass on to their descendants. One decisive factor for the future development of savings is how the pension system will function in practice and what responsibility the individual will have in the future for other parts of the traditional welfare system. Technological developments Another important driving force behind the securities markets is technological developments. These occur in several ways. Look, for example, at the current procedure for a securities transaction, from start to finish. The process from placing the order to buy or sell until the transaction is finally settled has become increasingly automated. I don’t just mean the actual trading, which has become increasingly electronic, but also the processes following on from this, namely clearing and settlement. Straight through processing, usually referred to as STP, is becoming more common. This involves the entire chain from placing the order to clearing and settlement being implemented without manual intervention. The increased automation has led to transaction costs falling.

If a marketplace has a high level of liquidity in an asset, many people will probably trade there, as they will be able to trade at the best, that is to say, the most correct prices. If a marketplace has liquid trading in one asset, it will often attract trade in other assets, as other companies want their instruments to be traded on a marketplace with many participants. In other  BIS Review 66/2004  3  words, there are natural tendencies towards concentration in financial instruments trading. The same applies to settlement and registration of ownership. However, technological developments have enabled increasing integration of the various parts of the transaction chain. This has also created incentives to establish automated systems all along the line, from order placement to settlement. The result is a vertical integration, where different stages of the value chain are integrated. Integration requires cooperation between, or even a merger of, the various parts of the infrastructure. Even if this, as I have mentioned earlier, leads to lower transaction costs, it is not certain that these cost reductions will benefit the end customers. When all of the stages of the chain are implemented automatically and ownership of the various parts may even lie with the same organisation, everyone will be dependent on a single supplier. This creates a risk that pricing will follow monopoly principles, which rarely benefits the economy.
B- In the area of payments, digitisation is likely to have additional consequences, which also pose major challenges in terms of sovereignty. Here, I would like to highlight two that deserve special attention: The first is the development of new types of settlement assets. The operation of our payment systems currently relies heavily on the largely complementary use of two types of settlement asset that can be exchanged at any time at par: central bank money, the only legal tender settlement asset, which is the money for the settlement of transactions between financial intermediaries, and commercial bank money, which is generally preferred for the settlement of retail transactions. Some crypto-asset projects aim to compete with – rather than supplement – this system by offering alternative settlement assets, “coins", whose value is not necessarily linked and fixed to central bank or commercial bank money. The implementation of these projects has shown that it is not easy to create the conditions for confidence in these alternative settlement assets and their use remains marginal to date. However, if their use were to grow significantly, their impact on the global economy could pose a major challenge to our current monetary order with major concerns for stability and sovereignty. The second consequence that deserves particular attention is the processing and storage of payment data. Both the applicable law and the ability of private and public players to ensure the proper management of their data depend on location of servers.

The expansionary fiscal policy is contributing to a strong development of household disposable income in the coming years, providing a basis for higher private consumption as well as increased saving. Exports rise during the forecast period but the increase is relatively modest both on account of the international upswing being tentative initially and because the krona is expected to appreciate. GDP growth is judged to be 1.6 per cent this year and then accelerate to between 2.5 and 3 per cent in the coming years, which as fare as can be judged is somewhat more than the Swedish economy can sustain in the longer run without giving rise to inflationary tensions. With the high resource utilisation, labour costs are judged to rise somewhat more than we foresaw in the December Report. Partly for this reason, domestic inflation in the forecast period is somewhat higher than foreseen earlier. CPI inflation stops at 2.2 per cent one year ahead and 2.4 per cent after two years. The corresponding forecast for inflation’s underlying rate, UND1X, is 2.2 per cent both one and two years ahead. Monetary policy focuses in the first place on the latter rate. In this price forecast, the supply shocks that are now leaving their mark on inflation are judged to drop out of the twelve-month change figures successively during the late spring. Inflation is accordingly expected to approach 2 per cent in the early summer.
Notwithstanding some recent signs of improvement in the economic outlook, it is premature to declare the financial crisis over. From today’s perspective, the need for enhanced credit support remains. Therefore, for the time being central bank liquidity is likely to remain abundant. This does not mean, however, that the broader concept of liquidity in terms of monetary aggregates grows strongly. And it is this broader concept, not central bank liquidity itself, which is related to inflationary pressures over the medium term. Of course, central bank credit and broader monetary aggregates are linked over time. In a modern banking system, and in normal circumstances, central bank credit is largely used by banks – in the form of required reserves – to create bank credit, and expand deposits and broad money aggregates. So, an increased provision of central bank credit can lead – more or less automatically – to an increase in broad money. In current conditions, that link has been weakened, however. Today, banks – in the aggregate – tend to hold part of the central bank credit that they obtain in our refinancing operations not as a reserve against an expansion of loans and deposits, but in the form of  8  BIS Review 103/2009  excess reserves deposited with the Eurosystem. This attenuates the automatic link between the provision of central bank liquidity and broad money. And, as a consequence, it attenuates the inflationary potential of the Eurosystem’s outstanding credit to banks.

The starting point in revising laws is therefore to ensure that the governing laws allow for the conduct of Islamic finance business. A closely related goal is to consider removing elements in existing laws, including the non-regulatory laws, which may render the conduct of Islamic finance business uncompetitive or inefficient. Initial considerations would involve changes to ensure that Islamic finance is placed on a level playing field with conventional finance. The purposes and objectives of the governing laws for Islamic finance are known to be largely similar to conventional finance from the financial regulation standpoint. Notwithstanding this, an ideal approach is devising a legal framework for Islamic finance that sanctions the statutory obligations for Shariah compliance in the governing law. This approach however, may not be feasible as preference for religions concerns can be seen to be contradictory to the principles of secularism and parity of beliefs rights in certain jurisdictions. We may need alternative approaches. I will revisit and elaborate on these points in greater detail at a later part of this speech. In Malaysia, the new Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009 explicitly codifies the duality of the Malaysian financial system which shall consist of the conventional financial system and the Islamic financial system. In this regard, Malaysia has taken the approach to enact regulatory laws that are, at least for banking and takaful (Islamic insurance) industry, separate from conventional finance as the legal foundation for the conduct of Islamic finance business.
Fernando Restoy: Challenges for banking resolution Closing remarks by Mr Fernando Restoy, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chairman of the FROB (The Fondo de reestructuración ordenada bancaria – Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring), at its conference, Madrid, 4 June 2014. * 1  *  *  Introduction  Good evening. I welcome this opportunity to share with you some thoughts on banking resolution. I cannot think of a more qualified audience to discuss this matter than that invited by the FROB for this conference, with representatives of competent authorities in the field, among others. I will organise my remarks as follows. First, I will briefly describe how I see the general global framework for banking resolution established after the crisis. Next, I will review the special features of the European case. And finally, I will concentrate on the lessons to be drawn from the Spanish experience, with a special reference to issues relating to the institutional design of banking resolution. 2  The global framework for banking resolution after the crisis  We all know that banking resolution has not achieved the status of a well-defined policy area until very recently. Actions taken by authorities in relation to failing or likely-to-fail institutions have followed a discretionary case-by-case approach, particularly with respect to the availability of public funds to protect banks’ creditors.

A good, albeit somewhat extreme, example of the scope of the new resolution powers took place very recently when a very small cooperative bank reached the point of non-viability. That bank proved unable to find by itself a suitable solution. As a consequence, the Banco de España put the institution into resolution and appointed the resolution fund (FROB) as an administrator. The FROB then took full control of the institution and sold it – through an express auction – to another cooperative bank. The whole process was conducted in roughly 24 hours and entailed no cost for depositors, creditors or even holders of capital instruments. All resolution actions have been taken with sufficient care, particularly with respect to the fulfillment of the no-creditor-worse-off principle. Indeed, so far we have faced very limited litigation, and no decision has been successfully challenged to date in the courts of justice. I believe that the recent Spanish experience may offer some insight into issues aired in the ongoing debates in the European Union and the rest of the world. First, as I said, the Spanish bank restructuring process was conducted without a clear European resolution framework. Yet, as in all cases in which Member States offer support to weak institutions, resolution and restructuring plans had to be submitted to the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission to clear compliance with EU State Aid  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Rules.