samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
A messaging standard is a common set of rules for exchanging relevant payment information in order to enable efficient communication with participants and related infrastructures. Messaging standards cover such things as: •  How senders and receivers identify each other;  •  How key properties of a payment message, such as currency, amount and value date, are represented; and  •  What additional information can be included. The Bank is committed to transitioning to a new standard, specifically ISO 20022, as is the New Payment System Operator (NPSO). This is an open and global standard which can continually evolve to meet the needs of users. It is network agnostic to enhance interoperability with various operating systems and it has substantially increased data carrying capacity. Ultimately, in the very long term, ISO 20022 could also enable us to include a diverse range of characters from existing languages and other communications systems, though we will focus on ensuring we get the basics right first. In any case, this transition from the legacy and 3  Bank of England, RTGS Renewal Programme Proof of Concept: Supporting DLT Settlement Models, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2018/july/rtgs-renewal-programme-proof-of-concept-supporting-dlt-settlement-models 4 Bank of England, Call for interest: Synchronised settlement in central bank money, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk//media/BoE/Files/payments/rtgs-call-for-interest-synchronised-settlement-in-central-bank-money  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  restrictive standards currently used will have far-reaching implications and benefits for not only the UK’s payments system, but participants and their customers.

Urban Bäckström: Financial cycles Speech by Mr Urban Bäckström, Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, at the Philadelphia Fed Policy Forum on Crises, Contagion and Coordination: Issues for Policymakers in the Global Economy, Philadelphia, 22 November 2002. *  *  *  First I want to express my thanks to the organizers for inviting me to this very interesting conference. Let me especially thank Tony Santomero for everything he has done in his previous capacity in inspiring and assisting us at the Riksbank over the years as an academic adviser. I wish you, Tony, every success as president for the Philadelphia Fed and as an important policy maker here in the U.S. I think one can say that central bankers around the world have never before had such a central and well respected position as they have had during the past decade. Their task seemed to be well defined and the job to deliver price stability has worked rather well. Much of the mystique that typically surrounded central banks has gradually disappeared. Openness and transparency have become the key words of the day. Moreover, research concerning monetary policy has made good progress during the past decade. The world of central banking has indeed undergone positive changes. However, it would be most dangerous for us, central bankers, to just sit down and relax in the belief that all the important problems in the field of monetary policy have been resolved and need no further consideration.
However the unexpected referendum result in favour of leaving the EU has impinged strongly on the financial markets and it is still too early to gauge how the stability and recovery of the euro area will be affected. The global Great Recession and sovereign crisis combined to make the past decade that of the lowest growth of the euro area since the Second World War. It is what the International Monetary Fund has so graphically summarised with the expression “too slow for too long”. At the same time, inflation has remained far from the medium-term monetary policy target. The exceptionality and nature of the imbalances built up, particularly the high private and public indebtedness, not only hinder the ability of economies to grow and reduce their unemployment levels, but also limit the room for manoeuvre of countercyclical economic policies, at least within their conventional framework. This has led the European Central Bank to assume leadership in the response to the crisis. The magnitude of the structural challenges facing the euro area is notable. Some are due to design failures in the current operational framework of the Monetary Union and of the European Union itself, and others to the absence of a sufficient will to press for reform, all failures and absences that have eroded European citizens’ confidence in the integration process. Against this background, I would like to focus my comments on the difficulties facing economic policy as it attempts to put the euro area recovery on a firm footing.

In the fall and in early winter, the market also felt the weight of rapidly deteriorating global lending terms, which will undeniably support the Central Bank’s tightening measures and will reduce domestic demand and inflationary pressure, as was mentioned in the Board of Governors’ announcement of 14 February. It is possible that there will be a rapid drop in domestic demand as a result of high interest rates and a tightening credit supply. At this point, however, it is impossible to assert that this will be the case. Exactly when it will be possible to lower the policy rate will be determined by economic developments and outlook. Precipitate interest rate reductions would push inflation upward and standards of living downward. The suggestion that it is necessary to lower interest rates in order to control inflation is absurd. Indeed, it is astounding how carelessly many people seem to view inflation. Furthermore, it is appropriate to stress that the Central Bank believes it is impossible to choose between price stability and financial stability. If we were to relax our stance on price  BIS Review 25/2008  1  stability, it would surely undermine the credibility of monetary policy. Inflation – and no less important – inflation expectations would increase drastically, which could lead, in short order, to an upward spiral of prices and wages and falling exchange rate.
Even small movements on the financial and foreign exchange markets can thus bring about a marked change in the SNB’s annual result, and this on the upside and downside alike. However, at neither of these points in time would a loss or profit actually be realised. A profit is only realised when we sell assets in the amount of the profit and convert the proceeds into Swiss francs. Book gains and losses therefore have a strong impact on the SNB’s annual result. Given the volatile developments on the international financial markets, substantial gains can be followed by substantial losses (Slide 2). With the greater size of our balance sheet, the range of fluctuations in our annual results has also increased. Every annual financial statement and the latest equity capital position must therefore always be regarded as simply a snapshot of the SNB’s financial situation at that moment in time. Page 3/7  Finely balanced approach to distributions Allow me to now explain in more detail how the SNB goes about distributing the profits it generates. The law at present makes two key stipulations in this respect: first, that building provisions – i.e. equity capital – is to take precedence over any distributions; and second, that distributions are to be smoothed over time. The SNB builds up equity capital from retained earnings. To this end, we make an allocation to the provisions for currency reserves every year, irrespective of whether we record a profit or loss.

But I would like to point out that these are preliminary views. I am happy to listen to arguments against them. The Riksbank’s assets can be roughly divided into two parts. We have a portfolio of Swedish securities (almost SEK 400 billion), that has been built up through quantitative easing for monetary policy purposes. And we have foreign exchange reserves (just over SEK 500 billion) that we hold for contingency purposes. 9 The Swedish portfolio consists solely of government bonds. This is partly to hold down financial risks, and partly because monetary policy, apart from determining the general interest-rate level, should disturb pricing on the financial markets as little as possible. The state is the Riksbank's principal. It would therefore seem inappropriate to me if the Riksbank chose government bonds to attempt to give the government incentive to work towards a more sustainable development. I therefore do not think that the Riksbank should treat green Swedish government bonds any differently from other Swedish government bonds. 10 The conditions for active climate consideration are slightly better in our work with the foreign exchange reserves. To ensure that the foreign exchange reserves fulfil their purpose, they need to consist of assets that can be rapidly converted to money even when the markets are not functioning properly. Our assessment is that the foreign exchange reserves best correspond to this need if they consist of 75 per cent US government bonds, 20 per cent German and 5 per cent British, Danish and Norwegian government bonds.
Benoît Cœuré: Making our monetary union stronger and more resilient Speech by Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Finanzmarktklausur of the CDU Wirtschaftsrat, Berlin, 14 March 2018. * * * Let me thank the organisers for inviting me here today. Our common monetary policy has been much discussed in recent years, also here in Germany, where the highest court has been asked to examine the lawfulness of some of our measures. While the European Court of Justice has confirmed that the ECB has acted at all times within its mandate, many of the institutional failings which caused and perpetuated the crisis, and which contributed to the ECB adopting a series of unconventional policy measures, remain unresolved. These shortcomings are well known. When there’s growth and the sun is shining, euro area Member States have few incentives to pursue sound policies and keep their economies productive and flexible enough to prosper in a monetary union on a sustainable basis. This leaves them vulnerable when rainy days come. In such an environment, where the governments of the 19 Member States have retained core responsibilities in crucial areas such as fiscal policy, business environments and labour market policies, the central bank can quickly become a scapegoat or be the focus of unrealistic expectations. Worse, there is hardly a single European public discourse in which the common monetary policy can be communicated. Take the title of this panel as an example.

The connotation that people attach to the term “Nullzins” will likely be different from, say, “geldpolitischer Impuls” – although both terms in essence describe the same thing. Worse, monetary policy can quickly become overburdened if national fiscal and economic policies fail to internalise the effects they have on the common currency. The temptation to freeride is always present in a monetary union. It is easy to see that if fiscal policy is loosened during an expansion, or tightened during a recession, the burden on the central bank to stabilise the economy increases mechanically. Even today, euro area growth still relies too much on monetary policy support. According to ECB staff estimates, the contribution of our easing measures to annual euro area GDP growth was half a percentage point in 2017 and will still be around one-third of a percentage point in 2018. And monetary policy can do little to lift the long-term growth rate of our region. All of this means that our currency union needs further reform – both at Member State and euro area level. I believe there is wide agreement on this. Where we still lack agreement, however, is on how these reforms should look in practice. I have described elsewhere the requirements of reform from the perspective of the single monetary policy. 1 As the central bank of the euro area, we have a stake in the success of the current discussion.
Now let’s take a closer look at the Client’s perspective. Firstly, if the Bank is operating on purely equity based financing – return on deposits will be based on the Bank’s performance. Now how many of us here invest our life savings in the stock market? Because that is essentially a rather crude way of presenting an example of what a pure equity based financing system may bring. It is of course possible for the authorities to guarantee your deposit in the Islamic Bank a depositor choose to “invest” – but this would no longer be in the spirit of Musharaka and Mudharaba. But another point that needs to be considered is this. Are banks the best entity to provide equity-based financing. Would it be more suitable for a joint venture company, a partnership or a private equity funds to undertake this venture? Shouldn’t we develop these marketbased institutions to be the conduit for such an endeavour. Since market-based institutions do not have the fiduciary responsibility to depositors. Should we leave the banks which were created to play an intermediary role to continue to perform the function which they are good at. Wouldn’t the financial stability aspect be a consideration on whether banks are allowed to venture into equity-based financing? Shouldn’t we expand an entirely new Islamic finance industry that specialises in equity-based financing?

As of Monday, the per-counterparty maximum bid limit was raised from $ billion to $ billion, and an overall size limit of $ billion was imposed for each operation. If the total amount of bids received in an operation is less than or equal to the $ billion size limit, awards will be made at a fixed offering rate. However, if the total amount of bids received exceeds the overall operation size limit, the $ billion in ON RRPs will be allocated through a single-price auction using interest rates that counterparties now include with their bids. Awards are made at a “stopout rate” – the rate at which the overall size limit is achieved – with all bids below this rate awarded in full and all bids at this rate awarded on a pro rata basis. The stopout rate is determined by evaluating all bids in ascending order by submitted rate up to the point at which the total quantity of offers equals the overall size limit. 12 The Federal Reserve will be closely analyzing the results of the ON RRP exercise conducted under these new testing parameters in order to further its understanding of how an ON RRP facility might best be structured during the initial stages of the normalization process. In addition, the Federal Reserve Board has been testing a facility through which it offers term deposits to credentialed depository institutions. Term Deposit Facility (TDF) transactions could be used to temporarily reduce the quantity of reserve balances.
Concluding remarks  The all region is going under a political, economical and social consolidating process. Now a day politicians, decision makers, analysts, almost everyone is stating the EU accession as the main priority, the top challenge for the next coming years. How far are we? That’s a difficult question. Many times I looked behind my shoulders to see how far we have come. It is indeed a long way, full of ups and downs. Along this way we have scored positive developments as well as few setbacks. Yet it has been a road toward progress. However the modern attitude of central banking requires a forward looking approach. It is for this reason that in my public appearances have always stressed the vital importance of the integration process and related issues. The success of this process will depend first and foremost by our attempts and dedication. There is only one way to get closer to the finish line. That requires waking up every morning with a European mentality, and try with all our efforts to make this dream come true. We all agree with the idea of not decorating our home with Fendi furniture whilst our roof is not yet fully covered. BIS Review 119/2007  9  I personally believe our societies are becoming mindful on their efforts towards European standards.

Our banking sector has reached its historically highest profitability levels. The ratios of capital adequacy and liquidity are above the average for the EU. Consequently, I would propose two brief topics to ponder on:  2/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  Just think of it, where would Bulgaria have been if the other economic, and not only economic, sectors had similar results? Also, remember where the BNB and the banking sector were not very long ago, in 2014 and 2015. The turbulences that we went through in those years spread well beyond the boundaries of the banking sector. How did this transformation happen, from the state in which this sector was in 2015 to the state in which it is today. The answer is – extensive and determined reforms leading up to full integration into the nucleus of the EU, what essentially the euro area is. I think this is a completely valid response to the challenges facing the country today. Let me finish on a more prosaic note. What is the BNB doing on this matter now? As you are probably well aware, no formal criteria and requirements apply to the BNB. And how so? Because the BNB and the banking sector have succeeded in fulfilling all these criteria and requirements by 2020. It is precisely the compliance with these formal criteria and requirements that allowed Bulgaria to join the European banking union in 2020, one of the key euro area institutions, and the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
New statistics for the manufacturing sector, where employment has developed very weakly since the start of the crisis, also show that employment is increasing and that companies are planning for further new recruitment. We expect employment to continue to grow relatively strongly over the coming years (see Figure 7). Unemployment is now decreasing rapidly. It has fallen by over one percentage point over the last year. Our assessment is that unemployment will continue to decrease towards just over 6 per cent by 2013 (see Figure 8). BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  CPI inflation is presently unusually high. This is primarily connected with the circumstance that we are now in a phase in which interest rates are being increased. Mortgage rates are included in the CPI and they are increasing at the same rate as the Riksbank raises the repo rate – or, recently, even slightly faster. We expect CPI inflation to remain high in the years ahead (see Figure 9).2 CPIF inflation (the CPI with a fixed interest rate) provides a better view of underlying inflationary pressures and shows that inflation is currently low. The effect of rising energy prices on inflation has so far been counteracted by the strengthening of the krona. However, the main reason for the low rate of inflation is the weak development of unit labour costs. Productivity has increased rapidly at the same time as the rate of increase in hourly wages has been low.

Another problem was that Teknikföretagen, an employers’ organisation in the engineering industry, revoked the Industrial Agreement last year. The Industrial Agreement is an important reason that wage formation has worked so well since the mid-1990s. The revocation of this Agreement by one of the signatories meant that the future of the Agreement became uncertain. This has been sorted out now, with a new proposed Industrial Agreement having been accepted by all parties except the Swedish Paper Workers’ Union. I view the new Industrial Agreement as a success. It cements the principle that the parts of the business sector that are exposed to international competition should play a normative role in wage bargaining and gives the impartial chairmen a stronger role in the coordination within the manufacturing sector. It is thus positive that there is a new Industrial Agreement. But there is reason to remind ourselves of our experiences from the wage bargaining rounds in 1995. The coordination of the demands from the Swedish Trade Union Confederation failed in these wage bargaining rounds. The Swedish Paper Workers’ Union and the Employers’ Federation of Swedish Forest Industries were first out then, and concluded a relatively high agreement that set the level for a large part of the labour market. The result of this was wage increases of over 5 per cent in the years 1996 and 1997, levels which were altogether too high in relation to the inflation target and the weak employment situation.
Furthermore, challenges in ensuring that the appropriate statistical basis is available for macro-prudential oversight cannot, by definition, be addressed in full as data sets are dynamic, in the same way that the risks they capture evolve over time. Agility in the collection of statistics will therefore continue to be essential so as to accompany innovation in the financial industry and the associated vulnerabilities. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7

As a result, a new crisis management framework has been introduced, the aim of which is to force the banks’ shareowners and creditors – excluding, I would clearly like to point out, those depositors protected by the deposit guarantee – to take a greater responsibility for losses in the event of a default. Furthermore, the requirements regarding the banks’ capital and liquidity buffers have been tightened. In my opinion, these requirements can be even clearer and adapted to the conditions prevailing in the specific banking system. Bearing in mind the dependence of Swedish banks on funding on international capital markets and extensive foreign operations, the requirements regarding banks’ liquidity buffers – sometimes referred to as Liquidity Coverage Ratios – or LCRs – should be expressed in relevant currencies, including Swedish kronor. 8 It is also important to have high capital requirements. Lender of last resort for an increasing number of players Traditionally, systemic risks have been primarily associated with large banks. But developments in the financial sector have made it more difficult to assess where the systemic risks are. This is due to structural changes as a result of both new regulations and financial innovations. In both the Swedish 1990s crisis and the global financial crisis, a grey credit market and a shadow banking sector emerged that evaded the supervision of the authorities and to an extent took over the activities of traditional banks. The risks that were built up in the unregulated sector formed the basis of the system-wide crises that subsequently broke out.