samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In Sweden, these assets have increased from around SEK 6,000 billion to around SEK 14,000 billion over the past ten years, see Figure 5. Moreover, household saving in funds and pension companies, as a complement to ordinary bank savings, has increased. This development has meant that households have also become more sensitive to various shocks on the financial markets. Banks also rely to a large degree on market financing, see Figure 6 and it is not risk-free for them either. A large part of the short-term borrowing is moreover in foreign currency, particularly in US dollars. The fact that market financing is so large may be partly due to the Swedish pension system. If the collective pension savings contribute to household savings declining, it will reduce the banks’ opportunities to obtain financing in this way. They will then be forced to instead issue their own bonds on the market and that they also borrow abroad could depend on pension savings to some extent taking place in assets in foreign currency. 32 The development towards an increasingly sophisticated financial system, with more market financing, is essentially positive and actually reflects that “everyone has become richer”. When total global wealth increases, we need a larger and more developed financial system to administer it. The Swedish banking system only consists of a few actors who are closely interconnected with one another. This entails larger risks. If problems arise in one bank, they will easily spread to others.

But this technology means at the same time that bitcoin is very ineffective to use, as each payment requires large amounts of time and energy. Nor is there anything to limit the supply of copies of bitcoins in the form of other cryptocurrencies. So-called stablecoins are instead based on borrowing credibility from state money by promising full back-up in a state currency. 11 However, it is very difficult for a totally private currency to gain the same credibility as state money enjoys. What do all of these challenges and changes mean for us central banks? Well, we must also adapt our activities to the new environment. This is nothing new for an 9 This has also been done at EU level, for instance through the PSD2 legislation, which enables payment service  providers, which do not have their own deposit accounts, to offer payment solutions initiated from bank accounts. This increases the circle of companies that can offer payment products. 10 For further information on this, see the CPMI report “Non-banks in retail payments” (2014). 11 For more information on stablecoins, see Arner et al. (2020). 6 [35]  institution like the Riksbank, which has existed for more than 350 years. It is difficult to survive for so long without being able to adapt. But what is new this time is how quickly we may need to adapt.
This requires greater transparency and a recognition that a sound financial system is one that practices the traditional banking values of integrity and faithfulness. Some of you might recall that these values were captured in the motto of The Chartered Institute of Bankers, “Probus et Fidelis”. It is perhaps a sign of the times that the Institute’s current logo of two overlapping arrows is, we are told, all about its core value: winning, a value which some market players have pursued with excessive zeal with the calamitous results we all know. It is just possible that we might not have been where we are today had the old, but tested values continued to prevail. 6  BIS Review 155/2008

The end of the Bretton Woods era gave rise to an IMS that is mostly based on principles, which are discussed in fora such as the G7, G20 or the OECD and BIS. In particular, one principle holds that multilateral financial safety nets should be available to countries facing large financial market disruptions caused by major external shocks. Like any insurance-providing scheme, the IMS is incentives-based. The incentives for any economy to access the IMF’s credit lines, bilateral swap agreements or regional balance of payment support facilities depend on the conditionality embedded in each of these mechanisms, as well as on the degree of self-insurance acquired by this economy, e.g. through foreign exchange reserves. The problem here is that conditionality is not always explicit, nor is it consistent across instruments, providing a fuzzy set of incentives – and therefore a bias towards self-insurance. This may create arbitrage opportunities across facilities (in other words, a “race to the bottom” of conditionality, encouraging moral hazard) and, ultimately, a bias towards self-insurance, a sub-optimal way to deliver global stability. There is scope for improving the consistency of these facilities both horizontally across institutions and vertically between the global and regional level. A different set of incentives stems from the surveillance carried out by the IMF and other institutions and fora.
Denny H Kalyalya: Zambian financial sector – responding to the needs of business Speech by Dr Denny H Kalyalya, Deputy Governor-Operations of the Bank of Zambia; at the opening of Standard Chartered Bank Zambia Solwezi Branch, Solwezi, 10 December 2008. *  *  *  The Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Hon. Felix Mutati The Minister, North-Western Province, Hon. Joseph Mulyata The Chairman of the Board of Standard Chartered Bank Zambia, Mr. George Sokota His Worship the mayor of Solwezi The Managing Director of Standard Chartered Bank, Mrs. Mizinga Melu Distinguished guests Members of the press Ladies and Gentlemen I am pleased to be here at the official opening of the new Solwezi Branch of Standard Chartered Bank Zambia Limited. Ladies and Gentlemen, recent times have shown a proliferation of commercial bank branches in areas which had previously been considered unattractive for business. Rural areas had even experienced closures where banks felt that they were unable to establish a case for business. The economic environment that the Government created through the reforms instituted in the early 1990’s has given new confidence to investors and has provided an opportunity for businesses to grow, thereby attracting banks to the areas which were deprived of basic financial services. The opening of this branch today, in a town which has attracted major investments, is a demonstration that the financial sector is indeed, now responding to the needs of business.

While each financial market has many idiosyncratic factors, fintech can offer solutions that cut through different geographical and market boundaries. For example, breakthrough in biometric authentication technology is helpful not only in the advanced markets but also in the developing markets. By the same token, cybersecurity threats can originate from anywhere in the world and is not bound by national boundaries. There is a high degree of commonality in the application of fintech, especially in the context of cross-border financial transactions and flows. So it is crucial for Hong Kong to enhance its collaboration with other financial centres to share experience and learn from each other. In this context, I am very pleased to announce that I have just signed a Cooperation Agreement on fintech with the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Mr Ravi Menon. To mark the occasion, a simple ceremony will be held later this morning to exchange the signed Agreement. May I take this opportunity to thank my MAS colleagues for working very hard with us on this most meaningful collaboration. 4. Hong Kong and Singapore are the two leading international financial centres in Asia. Both the HKMA and MAS are actively promoting the use and development of fintech respectively. There is considerable scope for the two places to collaborate and achieve a win-win outcome. A priority area of collaboration is the use of fintech in advancing the hitherto paperbased trade finance system that has been in use for as long as trade existed.
Finally, at the institutional level, there is the tension between the nation state and supra-national bodies that partly stems from the fact that the euro area is a monetary union which is not under-pinned by a common Treasury. These tensions are reflected in the rise of political movements and parties that oppose and want to reverse the admittedly complex and difficult process of European integration that emerged from the ashes of the Second World War, and threaten the single currency itself. These tensions are the source of the governance issues that EMU faces and which still have to be resolved. I would like to examine three aspects of EMU in turn: monetary policy, fiscal policy and economic integration. I believe that as far as the monetary dimension of EMU is concerned, many issues have been settled. The Governing Council of the ECB pursues a clear mandate to maintain price stability, defined as a rate of inflation below but close to 2%, and it has consistently run monetary policy in pursuit of this goal. However, monetary policy is facing the constraints of operating at the zero interest rate bound. An institutional set-up that was designed to fight inflation has had to react to an unprecedented situation characterised by the absence of inflationary pressures. In my view, some design features – such as the asymmetric response to deviations from the ECB’s target – ought to be reviewed. On the fiscal front, compliance with the existing governance framework has fallen far short of the original expectations.

In sum, we are still far from completing the steps envisaged in the first phase of the Five Presidents’ roadmap. Achieving and maintaining responsible fiscal policies at national and euro area level still  3  seems beyond our grasp and while certain elements of the Banking Union are now in place, more needs to be done. Overall, the timetable is ambitious. We must also be realistic and admit that further integration is running against headwinds of popular discontent with integration and liberalisation. We need, therefore to be more open about what we are doing, to fully engage all our citizens and to build a case for a stronger EMU that can enjoy broad popular consensus rather than being imposed from above. 4
Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala: Asian Bond Fund Speech by Mr Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at Euro 50 Group Roundtable, Tokyo, 12 June 2003. *  *  *  Mr. Chairman, On the issue of Asian Monetary Cooperation, Thailand is certainly of less importance than Japan; therefore I have to apologize for speaking before Director-General Watanabe. Since it is late in the day and time is short, I will try to make it interesting by going directly to the Question and Answer session. However, I will be the only one asking the questions, and giving the answers. But I will restrict myself to only five. The first question: There are a lot of initiatives on financial matters going on in Asia. Does it mean that we are aiming for a monetary union of sort in Asia soon, or something leading up to a single Asian currency? I cannot speak for other Asian countries, and I do not know whether something is being planned for the more advanced countries, like Japan and Korea, or not. However, looking through the eyes of someone in Thailand, which is part of ASEAN, the final goal of monetary union, should it exist, is still around many corners. In my opinion, the level of economic integration in Asia is still much looser than Europe at their early stage of integration. You may point to the rapidly expanding inter-regional trade in Asia.

But in the nest step, the Asian Bond Fund will extend the investment into the various local bond markets in local currencies. The Fund will be calling on Asian countries. It will be ready to invest, but only if the market builds up the right conditions, and removes all the impediments. And you know that until the last impediment is removed, the market will not be attractive to foreign investors. And since these impediments often extend across many government departments and functions, as well as the judicial system, so only the strongest political commitment can remove all of them. So will the political commitment come forward? With money waiting at the door, and with peer pressure and available assistance within Asia, I think there is a good chance that it will. Someone asked me earlier how much of the Asian international reserves will have to go into these Asian Bond Funds. Well, I hope not a lot. It is not the job of the authorities to replace the market. What the authorities try to do is simply to act as a catalyst. In the long run, private money in Asia should find its own way to invest in Asia, whether it is savings from insurance companies in Japan, mutual funds in Hong Kong or pension funds in Singapore investing in corporate bonds all over Asia. Will there be enough opportunity for investing in Asia? Certainly! Many Asian countries still have very young populations. Half of Thais are under the age of 30.
4 For a formal treatment of how a relaxation of the lower bound affects future rate distributions and the yield curve,  see Lemke. and Vladu (2017). For an example of a study that uses loan-level data to confirm that NIRP works through a portfolio rebalancing channel and also incentives banks to rebalance their portfolios from liquid assets to credit, see Bottero, Minoiu, Peydro, Polo, Presbitero and Sette (2019). 5 For example, see Brunnermeier and Koby (2018). 6 See Cœuré (2019). 7 For a more in-depth discussion of those channels and an empirical assessment, see ECB (2019b). 8 See Draghi (2019). 9 For some examples, see the following studies: Albertazzi, Altavilla, Boucinha, and Di Maggio (2018); Altavilla,  Canova, and Ciccarelli (2016); and Benetton and Fantino (2018). 10 18 / 19  BIS central bankers' speeches  10 See Demiralp, Eisenschmidt, and Vlassopoulos (2019). 11 See Altavilla, Carboni, and Motto (2015). 12 The macroeconomic impact reported in Rostagno et al. (2019) is broadly comparable with that in ECB (2019b)  over a comparable period. 13 For more details, see ECB (2019a). 19 / 19  BIS central bankers' speeches

In view of the existence of political barriers to international trade, the flow of capital and goods was equally as possible one hundred years ago as it is today. It goes without saying, however, that as a result of the rapid development of technology, especially in the ICT area, which drastically lowered the cost of the said exchange, the international integration of trade, investment, financial and other services is now more advanced than it has ever been before. In recent years globalization “tail wind”, mainly through increasing competition, productivity and growing imports from low-cost countries, helped to reduce inflation in CEE countries. HICP inflation in the region 2 fell from average 7.7 percent in the years 1997-2000 to 3.8 in 2001-2006. It led to a prolonged period of very low nominal and real interest rates. Nominal interest rates (average for CEE countries with flexible exchange rate regimes) have fallen from 8.8 percent during 2002-2005 to 5.4 during 2006-2007. Real rates decreased from 3.0 to 1.7 in the same period. This in turn helped to accelerate credit growth and fuelled asset bubbles. The amount of loans granted to households increased 3.5 times since 2004 and almost 10 times since 2000. Low deposit rates and economic upturn in CEE after EU accession encouraged both financial institutions and individuals to move toward more risky forms of investment. As a result, real estate prices soared after 2004 and equities listed on stock exchanges reached historical highs.
Growth rates in digital efficiency are higher than in earlier episodes, with Moore’s Law – the doubling of computer processing capacity every 18 months or so – typically taken as the yardstick for this time being different. Nonetheless, even with Moore’s Law operating, it is only recently that the digital revolution may have reached critical velocity. Perhaps consistent with that, a number of transformative technologies have arrived on the scene recently, including in the fields of robotics, genetics, 3D printing, Big Data and the “internet of things”. 46 These are not new. What is new is their widening application, as they have moved from inventions to GPTs. Economist Brian Arthur has a beautiful metaphor for describing this transition – the transition from a physical (or “first”) economy to a digital (or “second”) economy. 47 He likens earlier industrial revolutions to the body developing its physiological or muscular system. By analogy, the economic system was defining and refining its motor skills, largely through investment in physical capital. The digital revolution is different. It is akin to the economic body developing its neurological or sensory system, defining and refining its cognitive skills through investment in intellectual capital. The success of the recent wave of transformative technologies is built on them creating a neural – brain-like – network of connections. The “internet of things” uses multiple sensors (like the brain’s neurons) connected through the web (like the brain’s synapses) to create, in effect, a machine-brain.

Moreover, they are characterized by low administrative and marketing costs, low employees’ salaries, easiness of procedures within their structure, high effective communications and quick access to information required for work, and the use of non-sophisticated production and operation means. They are also able to adapt to changes, especially in keeping up with consumers’ desires and preferences or change in the structure of labor force or policies of production, marketing and finance, enabling them to overcome economic changes and cycles. SMEs are also characterized by the freedom to enter and exit the market, thanks to their fixed and total assets and liabilities. Finally, they are flexible in geographic spread. Regardless of these advantages, growth and development of SME sector faces a number of challenges that might be greatly similar, not only at the level of a single country, but at the global one as well. The most important of these challenges are the high cost of capital due to high interest rates compared to large enterprises, difficulties in obtaining adequate finance due to lack of guarantees and their modest credit record, inability to compete and influence market forces and utilize economies of scale, inability of applying and facilitating government procedures to expand their activities, humble financial expenditure on development research, non-separation between ownership and management (80 percent of SMEs are run by their owners).
Sveriges Riksbank and Schnabel, I. and Shin H. S. (2018) “Money and trust: lessons from the 1620s for money in the digital age”. BIS WP No 698. 4 Camera, G. (2017). “A perspective on electronic alternatives to traditional currencies”. Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 2017:1. Sveriges Riksbank. 5 The copper standard was introduced in 1624. The reasons for this were the shortage of silver and gold due to the prolonged wars, and a desire to maintain the price of copper, which was Sweden's most important export product. 2  2 [15]  than several kilos of metal. This is how Europe's first modern paper money to use printing technology came to be. Unfortunately, the bank issued more money than it had cover for, leading to bankruptcy. But the need for a bank remained and, a few years later, the Riksbank was founded and was eventually able to issue banknotes on behalf of the government under more controlled forms. 6 However, it was not just the government that was allowed to issue banknotes at that time. For example, in Sweden, private banks were allowed to issue their own banknotes into the 20th century. The Riksbank did not gain a monopoly on issuing money in the form of banknotes and coins until 1904. The problem with the private issue of banknotes was the risk of the bank issuing the money entering bankruptcy, in which case this money could fall in value.

2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  In addition, none of these sectors is unregulated today in Europe (AIFM directive for alternative funds, UCITS directives for funds, Solvency 2 for insurance, EMIR for CCPs) and replicating some rules stemming from banking supervision to these entities would simply be irrelevant. More generally, it is up to the policy makers to act consistently and try to anticipate and mitigate any possible unintended effects of their policy decisions. For instance it might seem contradictory to encourage central clearing of derivatives or trading on organized trading platform as a means to reduce systemic risks on the one hand, while on the other hand levying a Financial Transaction Tax on these operations if they are deemed safer. Policy makers should make sure their actions will not be a factor of market instability which could spread to the market and create another crisis. Conclusion As we can see, policy makers have still a lot of work on their plate as regards the design of an adequate regulatory framework for the “shadow banking sector” and for it to be sufficiently sound to be providing a sustainable “market based financing”. The Capital Market Union’s project launched by the European Commission is aiming at achieving to achieve a sound regulatory framework. To this end, for instance, the European Commission with the help of the European Banking Association (EBA) has recently defined criteria for Simple, Transparent and Standardized (STS) securitization.