samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Since one of the banks’ major tasks still is to strengthen their loan portfolios, the slower growth rate of the economy and the slower improvement in the economic profile of some categories of clients would force banks to look for new niches for business. This may lead to greater specialisation in certain types of services and to more intense competition for every new client. I would like to point out that the increased competition does not exclude the need for you to keep up a high level of correctness in your relations with one another and with your clients. While the bank services market is getting saturated, consumers’ awareness is being raised. The stronger competition in the banking sector also promotes new approaches in the dealings with clients1. One possible room for competition between credit institutions is, for instance, the transparency and predictability of structuring, and especially of pricing, their products and services. One should work more for the benefit of clients, adopting a more individual approach to those facing difficulties, summing up and analysing the experience gained and drawing conclusions that could be put to good use in new and better banking practices. The happy client is the cheapest advertising for the bank. The work done in each of the above problematic areas allows for a more active presence – at an expert level and in the public area – both of the individual banks’ representatives and of the ABB as their legitimate and highly reputable association.

Because you are well aware that the BNB makes no compromises with safety. The President of the Republic of Bulgaria is present today, so I am tempted to take advantage and draw the attention of the responsible State institutions to some significant gaps in the commercial legislation. Legal and subjective obstacles get in the way of reducing the share of non-performing loans. Bulgaria is no exception among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe where the winding-up and insolvency proceedings, as well as the sale of the collateral, are relatively more sluggish. Regretfully, in Bulgaria the cases of unethical debtors taking advantage of some weaknesses of the existing insolvency proceedings, which allow them to manipulate the initial date of insolvency and nullify the pieces of collateral  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  pledged after that date, are becoming more and more frequent. The problems with the insolvency and winding-up court proceedings in the corporate sector inhibit the rehabilitation of banks’ books (i.e. that part of banks’ balance sheet assets which has been hit the hardest during the crisis). This prolongs the procedures and increases the costs for managing the so-called “bad loans”, which negatively affects banks’ capacity to take new credit risk at an acceptable cost. Hampering the lending processes in turn impedes the economic growth in the country, and hence – employment and people’s living standards.
The most recent example in the UK banking sector was during the recession of the early 1990s when the major banks wrote off about 2.5%of their domestic loan book and tightened credit conditions, thus exacerbating the fall in property prices and in confidence. It has been estimated that the effect of the tightening of credit conditions was to reduce UK output in 1991 by almost 2% relative to what it would otherwise have been. 4 Of course, there was little monetary policy could do at that time to offset these effects because of Sterling’s ERM membership. But the current crisis does not follow that pattern. It has come at a time when the performance of the UK economy has been unusually good. Over the past fifteen years the economy has experienced the most stable macroeconomic conditions on record with steady growth, low inflation and a declining trend in unemployment. 5 For the most part the underlying balance sheet position of households and firms is robust and most indicators of financial fragility such as mortgage arrears, repossessions and corporate insolvencies are at low levels (Chart 5). So the question is whether we can reverse into macroeconomic trouble starting from a banking crisis with its origins in the US housing market. Of course a marked slowdown in the US will diminish directly part of our exports.

The excessive budget deficit procedure was initiated against Germany and France which exceeded the maximum budget deficit allowed according to the Growth and Stability Pact, 3% of the GDP - and the number of such member states will probably grow. At the same time, the situation initiated a discussion regarding sufficient flexibility of the Growth and Stability Pact, first and foremost in the context of a weaker economic situation. •  Estonia's budgetary policy is and has been strict and balance-oriented. This gives us a competitive advantage over others and does not place us in an inferior position, contrary to what has been erroneously claimed. The current debt burden of the Estonian government sector is about 5% of the GDP (the lowest in the EU accession countries); the budget deficit of the government sector rose above the maximum level allowed under the Maastricht criteria only in 1999. 6  BIS Review 26/2004  •  While assessing the relevance of the budgetary balance requirement from the viewpoint of Estonia's future competitive ability, one certainly has to bear in mind that merely meeting the budget criterion might not be a sufficient success guarantee. In the conditions of the common monetary policy, the budgetary policy will become the principal economic policy tool through which the government can independently influence economic development (e.g. stimulate its economy in the period of slow growth).
At the same time, uncertainty about the effect of interest rate changes has increased, suggesting a cautious approach to interest rate setting. 4/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  The rise in interest rates affects consumption through various mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms operate with a lag. Household disposable income will be affected by slightly more subdued growth in employment and wages. Higher interest rates may also curb the rise in house prices, resulting in a smaller rise in housing wealth than would otherwise have been the case. Other consequences of an interest rate increase will have a more direct impact on private consumption. First, higher interest rates push up the cost of consumption today relative to consumption tomorrow. Debt-financed consumption becomes more costly, while saving provides a higher return, pointing towards lower consumption today. Credible signals that the interest rate will remain at a higher level ahead may amplify this effect. Second, the interest rate increase has a direct impact on household disposable income. The strength of this channel will depend on the overall debt level and the distribution of debt (Gerdrup et al (2018)). While higher interest rates means increased expenses for some, interest income increases for others. If housing wealth is disregarded, Norwegian households as a whole are in a net debt position. As higher interest rates means higher net interest expenses, a higher interest rate level will in isolation reduce household purchasing power. Chart: Household debt has increased The elevated debt level has amplified this effect.

This study finds that the relative decrease in consumption after a reduction in income, referred to by economists as the marginal propensity to consume, depends on households’ financial situation. The literature also refers to the “wealthy hand-to-mouth” (Kaplan and Violante (2018)), ie households with high incomes, illiquid housing assets and relatively high loan-to-value ratios. In the face of higher interest expenses, this group may well react by making a considerable adjustment in consumption. Chart: Debt and wealth vary through the life cycle 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  Households’ financial position can largely be inferred from the stage in the life cycle. The chart shows how assets and debt vary with age. On average, the highest level of debt is for households in the 30–40 age group. An interest rate increase will have the greatest impact on this group, which also has modest financial buffers. [6] This group’s wealth primarily comprises illiquid housing assets that may be difficult to draw on in hard times. Debt is lower for the older age groups. These groups include people who entered the housing market when house prices were lower. Since many have built up liquid wealth in the form of bank deposits or other kinds of assets, net interest income could increase for some. An interest rate increase would likely have a smaller effect on consumption in this group than in younger groups. The oldest age groups are virtually debt-free. Many older households have substantial housing wealth and money in the bank.
7/29  The profitability data based on individual financial statements of business in Spain are also highly cyclical, even more so than those from the consolidated statements. This reflects the greater severity of the crisis in Spain than in other economies in which Spanish banks had exposures and highlights the benefits of diversification. Also apparent is a marked recovery in recent years, despite which in 2018 both ROE and ROA were still lower than before the crisis. The breakdown of the return on assets shows that the main determinant of the current low profitability of business in Spain compared with the pre-crisis period is a weakening of net interest income expressed as a proportion of assets, or net interest margin. This fall, concentrated between 2009 and 2013, was from 1.4% to 0.9%. The indicator then steadied at around 1% of total assets. The fall was attributable to several factors. 8/29  One factor is the increase in the relative share of non-performing assets, i.e. those that do not earn interest, such as NPLs or foreclosed assets. Specifically, between 2007 and 2013 the NPL ratio of business in Spain rose by nearly 13 pp. It then fell gradually, against a background of decreasing loan volume, and at mid-2019 stood at 5.3%, more than 8 pp below the ceiling reached in 2013. However, this ratio is still well above its precrisis level. Foreclosed assets have fallen by 50% from the high reached in 2011, but still amounted to nearly € billion in June 2019.

Ksenia Yudaeva: The policy of the Bank of Russia for ensuring financial stability in an environment of economic recovery Speech by Ms Ksenia Yudaeva, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia, at the Forum on Financial Stability "The policy of the Bank of Russia for ensuring financial stability in an environment of economic recovery", Moscow, 13 April 2017. * * * Dear colleagues, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Forum on Financial Stability, which has by now become a tradition. In the last few quarters we have witnessed the beginnings of fundamental change in both the economy and financial markets. The economy has adapted to balance of payments shocks and started on a path of recovery, and the level of volatility in financial markets has gone down significantly. The relatively calm climate we now find ourselves has led to a decrease in risks that had been building up, but such a climate could nevertheless bring in new risks and lead to the creation of so-called bubbles in certain markets. The Bank of Russia must continue to be on the alert, and ready to adopt the necessary measures as they are called for. And so, through our analysis of the potential for implementing macroprudential instruments and macroprudential stress testing, that is exactly what we are doing now. Myself and a number of my colleagues will be delving deeper into these issues, and I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few myself.
2.2  Draft Budget: projected revenue  On the revenue side, the Draft Budget proposes a broad raft of legislative changes to existing taxes, including in particular a higher rate of personal income tax and wealth tax for higher income earners, a limit on double taxation exemptions for large corporations, a minimum tax rate of 15% on the tax base of SOCIMIs (Spain’s real estate investment trusts), and higher taxation of hydrocarbons (focused on diesel oil for non-professional use) and other environmental taxes. On official estimates, these measures combined will raise public revenue by some € billion in 2021. 21  The Draft Budget also reflects the impact on revenue of the financial transaction tax and the tax on certain digital services, both approved recently, and of other new taxes, such as, for example, the tax on non-reusable plastic containers and on landfill waste. On official estimates, the impact on revenue of this set of instruments would amount to some € billion in 2021. As in the case of the expenditure items, I will not examine in detail the different revenue heading measures individually, but will confine my analysis to three questions that I believe to be very important, namely the overall direction of the tax changes introduced, their appropriateness, and the risks surrounding their revenue-raising capacity. First, regarding the nature of the tax changes introduced in this Draft Budget, I wish to reflect on the appropriateness of the timing of the changes proposed and on the specific instruments used.

Economic distress may give way to political and social turmoil in Greece, with an unpredictable interplay with the broader dynamic of geopolitical tensions. Any setback in confidence could hurt a still tentative economic recovery in Europe, which will have spill-over effects on the rest of the world economy. 6. We should therefore not be alarmed, notwithstanding the drama of recent days, but we should stay alert and vigilant. Although the risk of a sudden brake in global growth remains low, we are closely monitoring developments and their potential impact on Singapore. 50 Years of Singapore’s Financial Centre 7. This year’s ABS annual dinner also comes as we mark our 50th year of nationhood in Singapore. Our financial centre has been both beneficiary and driver of the nation’s progress over the five decades. 8. We can take quiet pride in how it has evolved, from its beginnings in the financing of merchant trade with our neighbours, into a well-diversified, vibrant and widely respected centre of Asian and global finance. 9. It was never a given that Singapore would be a major financial centre. We started at a time when Hong Kong had a major head start, as the Asian outpost of the City of London. There was no natural reason why a broad range of global financial institutions and services had to be located in Singapore, a small island state separated from its Malayan hinterland. 10.
Ladies and gentlemen, The second challenge is in forging strong collaboration and cooperation among key stakeholders and overcoming the collective action problem. When it comes to costly and difficult action, we always prefer others to do it. Ministries, government agencies, policymakers and regulators must therefore set aside their differences and work for the greater good, consolidate their strength based on their shared values and work collaboratively to develop and bring creative ideas for sustainable development into fruition. Initiatives need to be driven beyond personal motivation and belief. Strategies need clear milestones with clear accountability by stakeholders. Sector-specific approaches need to converge to limit risks of a disorderly transition. The journey of sustainability is therefore one that is best navigated collectively. We have to come together to support joint and coordinated responses to mitigate unsustainable practices. For the Malaysian financial sector, the formation of the Joint Committee on Climate Change was an important milestone in pursuing collaborative actions for building climate resilience. A key mandate of the Joint Committee is to facilitate collaboration between key stakeholders in advancing coordinated solutions to address arising challenges and issues. This is in addition to building industry capacity, and identifying issues, challenges and priorities facing the financial sector in managing the transition towards a low carbon economy. The third challenge that we face as a developing nation is in balancing sustainability and competing socio-economic priorities, given our limited resources for transition to low-carbon economy.

The risks to the banks, particularly credit risk, will diminish. But on the other hand, the risks will instead be assumed by the institutions and the general public which invests in these funds. In the event that the value of the funds decreases the investors will suffer. This may in turn affect their behaviour in the economy, for instance it may reduce their consumption and also the value of property. We have not yet seen any such situation so the outcome is unclear, but we should not neglect the risks. Another form of transferral of risks is taking place in the financial sector. Through the use of new instruments and structures it has become easier to transfer and redistribute risks. For instance, a bank may deem that it has too much exposure to one customer or to a sector. It could then divest itself of this risk through credit risk derivatives or by securitisation. The advantage from a financial stability view is that the risks become more widely dispersed between the various holders and that the individual bank can build a well-balanced portfolio. But at the same time a new risk has emanated – the risk that the new holder of the risk cannot fulfil his obligations. In the event that there is a credit default, the seller of the derivative to the bank may not have the necessary financial means. Or, there could be an unclear legal position about the risk transfer agreement.
I will highlight today three dimensions to consider, among many others, in case the introduction of CBDC is decided: liquidity configuration, policy rates and access to central bank balance sheet. 1. First potential impact: the launch of CBDCs could affect monetary implementation through a change in the liquidity situation of the banking system. - While the design of the CBDC should ensure that any risk of sudden large shifts from bank deposits to CBDC would be avoided, it could still substitute a limited part of retail deposits, through an increase of what we call in central banking jargon “autonomous factors”, i.e. an item not linked to monetary policy but affecting the liquidity situation of the banking system. - This could in turn imply that the central bank – depending on its preferred liquidity position – provides additional liquidity through refinancing operations and/or asset purchases. In case of collateralized refinancing operations, collateral availability would also need to be checked to accommodate the operations. While it is very much a speculative thought at this stage, liquidity-providing or liquidityabsorbing operations would need to remain available at any time to ensure that central banks can choose to operate in the monetary policy implementation framework they choose, even in the case of the launch of a CBDC. 2. Second: the chosen remuneration scheme, as well as possible limits, are key parameters for the usage of CBDC that also need to be assessed for the monetary policy framework.

Our CBDC experiments, on which I will elaborate in a few minutes, also led us to develop our own permissioned blockchain (called DL3S- Distributed Ledger for Securities Settlement System) in collaboration with an IT provider. We have also drawn on artificial intelligence for various uses, such as a new forex trading tool and supervisory tools. The question that now attracts public attention is whether central banks’ investigation phases will lead to the development of CBDCs. Almost all of that attention is focused on retail CBDCs. At the same time, we can sometimes hear, and not only from commercial banks, that they are “a solution in search of a problem”. iii In my view, this phrase simply misses the point. What we are currently doing is keeping our eyes and minds open on this new way of making “public money” available. In Europe, we are halfway through our  Page 4 sur 5 investigation phase: the Eurosystem will make its decision by the end of 2023, before a potential launch in 2026 or 2027. I am sure President Christine Lagarde will be able to shed some light on the project. Beyond purely technical considerations, a retail CBDC could play an anchor role in the digital world, similar to the role played by banknotes in the physical world,iv and hence preserve the accessibility and usability of central bank money.
At 5:00 a.m., we participated in a conference call with our colleagues at the Board of Governors and the Treasury to review the options and decide on the way forward. After careful deliberation, together we decided on a course of action that would at least buy some time to explore options to mitigate the foreseeable damage to the financial system. With the support of the Secretary of the Treasury, Chairman Bernanke and the Board of Governors agreed that the New York Fed would extend an overnight non-recourse loan through the discount window to JPMorgan Chase, so that JPMorgan Chase could then “on-lend” that money to Bear Stearns. This action was designed to allow us to get to the weekend, and to enable us to pursue work along two tracks: first, for Bear to continue to explore options with other financial institutions that might enable it to avoid bankruptcy; and second, for policymakers to continue the work begun on Thursday night to try to contain the risk to financial markets in the event no privatesector solution proved possible. Over the course of that day, March 14, Bear was downgraded by the credit rating agencies, and the flight of customer business from Bear accelerated. This set in motion a chain of decisions across the financial system as market participants prepared for the possibility that Bear would not be open for business once Asian markets opened on Sunday night.

We created the Tracker Fund in a little under 6 months, from the time the EFIL Board recommended on 21st June 1999 that this was the way to launch the disposal programme. We did this at a time when market sentiment in Asia was just beginning to become less negative. If this were not enough of a challenge, we also had the shadow of Y2K hanging over us! By some miracle or rather due to the sheer hard work, long hours and perseverance on the part of the project team, we overcame countless operational, IT, legal and regulatory challenges thrown at us. Just to add to the degree of difficulty, we had to work in the full glare of the public eye, knowing that any miscommunication (however slight) could have a severely negative effect not only on our stock market but also on the international perception of Hong Kong. I have to tell you that making the decision to use an ETF as the disposal strategy was not an easy one. The strategy was then unorthodox and unproven in Asia, as was the investment appetite for such a product. The investment banking community was perplexed that we should launch an ETF when a block trade or a convertible bond option was so much more “familiar” or “safer”. Our legal advisers were perplexed that we should launch a fund through an IPO.