samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Median responses to the Desk’s July 2017 Survey of Primary Dealers and Survey of Market Participants indicated the estimated cumulative effect on the 10-year Treasury yield to be around 25 basis points over two years following implementation, and the cumulative effect on the 30-year production coupon MBS option-adjusted spread to be 15 basis points over the same timeframe. 13 Results from the New York Fed’s September 2017 Survey of Primary Dealers  and Survey of Market Participants indicate expectations of about a one in four chance of a return to the zero lower bound at some point between now and the end of 2020. Conditional on that scenario occurring, survey respondents on average assigned probabilities of over 80 percent to the portfolio being larger than $ trillion at year-end 2020—an outcome suggesting a renewal of full reinvestments or large-scale asset purchases. Additional reasons for the 10 / 13  BIS central bankers' speeches  muted response in asset prices are examined in a speech cited earlier, “Gradual and Predictable: Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet.” 14 Projection scenarios considered balance sheet sizes containing long-run levels of reserves of $ billion,  $ billion, and $ trillion, as well as a range of sizes for other Fed liabilities and capital. However, the balance sheet’s normal size is not a fixed value, since some factors, such as Federal Reserve notes (U.S. dollar paper currency) and capital, tend to grow over time.

Accordingly, since 2004, the Government has been implementing the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP) with a view to improving the functioning of financial markets and increasing accessibility to financial services. During the initial phase of the FSDP, numerous structural impediments to financial inclusiveness were identified and some measures have been instituted to correct them. The second phase of the FSDP is currently underway and focuses on enhancing the competitiveness of the financial services industry. It also focuses on establishing secondary trading of Government securities in an effort to enhance liquidity and price formation in the debt market. Without the liquidity provided by the secondary market, the primary or new issues market would be seriously hampered in its function of helping productive entities acquire new capital at affordable price. These measures are expected to stimulate development of the capital and money markets necessary for attracting long-term financing in the economy. Ladies and Gentlemen, in order to improve risk assessment of the credit worthiness of Zambian borrowers, the Government also came up with relevant legal provisions for establishing the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB). I am pleased to report that the CRB is now operational and compilation of the database on borrowers has commenced. However, the progress of collating credit information on the state of the clients’ financial status has been rather slow. I wish to take this opportunity to once again appeal to commercial banks and other financial service providers to expedite the process of building the data base on the borrowers’ credit profile.
Considering it as a very significant recommendation, we have recently added our contacts with the Albanian Banking Association in order to find a quick solution. A concrete action plan on the part of the recommendations directly related to the activity of the Bank of Albania and its competencies has already been completed and introduced to IMF authorities. What I deem as crucial is the complete assimilation of each suggestion made, and based on this absorption we have tried to build up a realistic and fully possible action plan. We believe that the successful accomplishment of the tasks included in the action plan shall be a key factor in enhancing the banking system financial stability. It shall influence the establishment of a modern payment infrastructure, increase financial market efficiency, perfect human capacities and set up a safe foundation for more sophisticated future developments. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize that the Bank of Albania shall provide all its expertise to the inter-institutional group established to meeting many other FSAP recommendations. We hope the commitment of other institutions, be they central or supervisory, shall be provided properly, in order for these recommendations to be accomplished in due course. I am convinced the Minister of Finance and me share the same objective, which is to lead our institutions to stepping this process forward, aiming at achieving a sustainable and sound financial sector development in the country.

With the assistance of a specialized international consultation, we believe this shall be a new, contemporary law and it shall identify a number of issues addressed in the form of FSAP recommendations. Starting from July 2005, the automated electronic clearing house system commenced to operate. Currently, we are working on completing the regulatory framework with a view to augmenting the services provided to the economy, aiming primarily at automating utilities’ periodical settlements. In November, the Bank of Albania Supervisory Council amended the Regulation “On licensing nonbank entities”, aiming at involving all non-bank financial institutions which operate in the territory of the Republic of Albania in the Bank of Albania licensing and supervision scheme. In October 2005, the Bank of Albania Supervisory Council approved the new organization structure of the Bank of Albania, placing a major emphasis to enhancing legal counselling, statistical service and public communication. These tree functions are deemed as very significant, in particular when considered in the context of our objectives related to monetary policy and EU integration. BIS Review 88/2005  1  Another short-term FSAP recommendation related to improving Bank of Albania transparency is now accomplished. Every interested person could be informed on the rules that the Bank of Albania pursues when it intervenes in the foreign currency market or be acquainted with the present agreements between the Bank of Albania and the Ministry of Finance. We have been intensifying our efforts to reaching to a rapid and effective solution as regards the Credit Information Bureau.
But the facilities have not been a panacea for three reasons. First, the facilities cannot address the fundamental problem – the shortage of capital in the banking system. The facilities can slow down the deleveraging process, but until the banking system is viewed as being sufficiently well-capitalized and is able to expand its lending activity significantly, the limits on credit availability caused by an impaired banking system will make it more difficult to generate a sustainable economic recovery. Second, there are limits on what the Fed can do legally. For example, the Fed can only lend if it is secured to its satisfaction. There has to be sufficient collateral available. The Fed cannot lend on an unsecured basis or provide guarantees. And the Fed cannot purchase assets other than Treasuries, agencies and agency MBS, and short-dated general obligations of states and municipalities. Third, the effectiveness of some of the Fed facilities have been undercut by stigma – the discount window is the best example of this – or by worries about what other strings are or might be attached to the use of the facilities – the TALF comes to mind in this respect. BIS Review 48/2009  3  One reason why the TALF has gotten off to a relatively slow start is the reluctance of investors to participate. Issuers’ interest, not surprisingly, dwarfs investor demand at this stage of the program.

Mr Bäckström covers monetary policy in Sweden from 1996 to 1998 Opening remarks by Mr Urban Bäckström, Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, the Swedish central bank, before the Standing Committee on Finance in Stockholm on 18 May 1999. Introduction In the period 1996–98 the annual rates of inflation, measured with the CPI, were 0.8, 0.9 and 0.4 per cent, respectively. This means that in each of these years the change in the CPI not only deviated from monetary policy’s 2 per cent target for price stability but was also outside the lower tolerance limit of 1 per cent inflation. The Riksbank has indeed made assessments that subsequently proved to be a bit off the mark. As a result we have also made decisions that, looking back when the outcome was known, could have been somewhat different. But on the whole, the result of monetary policy in this period seems to be acceptable. In my opening remarks I intend to give this appraisal more substance. One major reason why CPI inflation has been low in the past three years is that the price trend has been affected by some specific price movements that monetary policy neither can nor should aim to counter fully. If the Riksbank attempts to counter such price movements, the result might be unnecessarily costly for the economy, that is, exaggerated fluctuations in economic activity as well as in the financial markets. It was against this background that the new Executive Board of the Riksbank clarified the inflation target earlier this spring.
A strong monetary policy response was therefore essential. In pursuit of our mandate, we decided on a comprehensive package of measures to ensure that inflation moves towards our aim in a sustained manner. We lowered the interest rate on the deposit facility from –0.40% to –0.50%. This rate provides an anchor for short-term market interest rates, which serve as the reference for many types of loans and financial instruments. Lowering the deposit facility rate helps to further improve the borrowing conditions of households and businesses. Negative rates also encourage banks to lend to the real economy instead of holding onto liquidity, thus supporting the portfolio rebalancing 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  channel of the asset purchase programme (APP). The impact of the cut in the deposit facility rate is reinforced by our strengthened forward guidance on the likely direction of our monetary policy in the future. Specifically, we clarified that we expect our policy rates to stay “at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within our projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics”. This enhanced guidance provides a clear signpost for rate expectations by linking our policy to more stringent conditions for the inflation outlook.

Likewise, Malaysia’s currency in circulation (CIC) over GDP of 6.1% is much higher than 3.8% on average in these countries. Over the past three years (2010 – 2012), cheque volume has declined only marginally at an average rate of 0.2% annually and the CIC over GDP remained at 6%. Malaysia has a banking population of 92% of which about 70% are internet banking subscribers. Moreover, the household broadband penetration rate in Malaysia has increased significantly from 32% in 2009 when we introduced the electronic processing of cheques, to 67% as at end-Sept 2013. With the necessary infrastructure in place, it is timely that all Malaysians migrate to electronic payments in our quest to become a high income, high value-added economy by 2020. To nudge the systematic migration to electronic payments, Bank Negara Malaysia has set targets in its Financial Sector Blueprint to reduce the number of cheques processed per annum by half from 204 million in 2012 to 100 million by 2020. At the same time, there are also targets to increase the number of Point-of-Sale terminals from 9 in 2012 to 25 unit per 1,000 inhabitants and to increase electronic payment transactions per capita from 56 in 2012 to 200 by 2020. Only by migrating from cheques and cash to electronic payments, can the country anticipate to achieve further cost savings and efficiency gains. Cost of cheques Although significant improvement has been made in the cheque processing infrastructure, cheque remains an expensive payment instrument to process at about RM3 per cheque.
That is a legacy of what we had to do before, and what we learned along the way: Croatian banks have an average CAR of approximately 24%, My preferred measure of bank capitalization – leverage ratio, 12%, LCR is approximately 240%, C/I ratio 47% and the latest ROE 14% And banks are still lending almost as there was no tightening. Another lesson that we clearly learned is that well capitalized banks lend more than poorly capitalized ones. 4. However, in the last six months, we have also learned that the euro area is to a significant degree still a fragmented market in which we also risk negative spillovers. Therefore, we should do as much as possible to make it a smooth, functional single money and banking market. Otherwise, we have a different transmission of monetary policy and potentially different resolution issues, which can create political tensions and reduce degrees of freedom for optimal policymaking. In other to achieve that, completing the banking union is necessary, and so is making sure that the SRB is operationally capable of resolving banks in a timely manner in a similar way, and similar cost structure across the whole banking union. Aligning the national regulations across different countries is necessary in many areas. And, of course, breaking the national banks / national public debt nexus is as necessary as it ever was. All of that is not easy and requires a lot of work on all sides.

Governor Boris Vujčić's speech at the FBF Executive Seminar Published: 4/7/2023  Governer Vujčić held a keynote speech at the FBF Executive Seminar "European finance in 2020s: new risks in a volatile world" organized by Florence School of Banking and Finance - The European University Institute on the 29 June 2023 Keynote speech at the Florence School of Banking and Finance Executive Seminar June 29, 2023  Introduction Over the last ten days that I have been on the road I spoke about CBDC to bankers, about the war in Croatia and economic lessons for the Ukraine, important, but heavy topic, and, of course, about monetary policy, interest rates and the balance sheet. So, I am happy to have been given a different topic for the last speech – financial stability. Thorsten told me to speak either about what the entry into the euro area means for the financial stability of Croatia, or about the risks to financial stability. I shall try to combine both and tell you what I have learned about financial stability from Croatian experience over the last 30 years, and how I see things now that we got into the euro area and the banking union. Over the last three decades, the Croatian banking system went through a transformation from a group of mostly bankrupt socialist financial institutions into a set of strictly supervised, overwhelmingly private, internationalised companies with strong corporate governance.
We end up with a lot of white noise and no real substance on what both markets and supervisors really want to know: how exposed is a bank to C&E risks and what is it doing to manage that exposure? It is of course relevant for banks to publicise their efforts to, for example, reduce the electricity consumption of their branches. However, it would be much more significant if they were to announce how they are steering their activities towards risk management practices that are aligned with a carbon-neutral economy. Looking at the world through “green-coloured glasses” is not quite the same as a sound management of all material C&E risks. We also observe a lack of concrete detail in how banks substantiate their climate-related and environmental metrics and targets. For example, when reporting on their commitment to align with the Paris Agreement, only around one in five institutions disclose the methodologies, definitions and criteria for all of the figures, metrics and targets reported as material. More than one-third of institutions do not disclose these aspects at all. In light of the increasing importance of such commitments, interested parties will increasingly seek information on these alignment metrics – and banks’ disclosures must become meaningful in this regard. Best practices Like many other institutions and agencies, the ECB is committed to sharing the best practices we have found across the industry. Not only do they serve as inspiration for banks who need to catch up, they also show that the ECB’s expectations can, in fact, be met.

It is expected that by 2025, the number of older people in Thailand will account for 20% of the population and exceed the number of children under 15 years old. In an ageing society, banks that are able to cater to the needs of older population and tailor their products to accommodate changing demands would be successful. The next trend, urbanization, happening in many East Asian countries, brings both challenges and opportunities. According to the World Bank Research that just came out early this year, almost twelve million people in Thailand now live in urban areas; about ten million live in Bangkok alone. The number seems low for the area outside Bangkok because of the strict definition of urban areas employed by the World Bank. The same research also says that, cities outside Bangkok are growing at a much faster rate, and some cities such as Surat Thani have more than doubled its population in ten years. Urbanization results in increased purchasing power and fuels domestic demand. More infrastructure investments such as housing, electricity and transportation will be required. This is where the financial sector can contribute and benefit from the development. The trend towards regionalization poses a fourth challenge as well as an opportunity for the banking sector. With the commencement of the AEC in 2015, competition will intensify, benefiting those prepared to pursue opportunities across borders.
While employment growth moderated in the second half of last year, in 2018 it was significantly higher than would be expected based on the static long-term relationship between employment and GDP growth.7 As a result, real disposable income has remained resilient and households’ assessment of their own financial situation, which is a good leading indicator of consumption, remains positive. The resilience of the employment-consumption relationship helps explain why, even as the manufacturing outlook has worsened, services have remained relatively robust. Services is the most labour-intensive sector and is associated closely with consumers’ expenditure.8 There are however lags between changes in GDP and in employment, and surveys on employment, while remaining in expansionary territory, have decelerated since the middle of last year. So should the growth slowdown turn into a more persistent phenomenon, employment and consumption are likely to be affected. All in all, the current data suggest that external demand has not yet spilled over significantly into domestic demand, but the risks have risen in the last months and uncertainty remains high. This is why our medium-term outlook remains that growth will gradually return to potential, but the risks remain tilted to the downside. That outlook is also being buttressed by the pre-emptive reaction of stabilisation policies.

As a result, the overall GDP growth for the quarter came in at 1.3 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Ladies and Gentlemen, In 2010, the Thai economy is expected to stay on the course of a gradual recovery due to two important factors. First, the continued world recovery, and second the fiscal stimulus. Let me go into each of these briefly. First, the IMF and market consensus expect the world economy to return to positive growth next year, owing primarily to monetary and fiscal policies of the industrialized economies that are expected to remain accommodative. Emerging market economies including Asia are expected to rebound faster and stronger than developed economies. This is because Asia’s financial sectors were not directly affected by the current crisis. Brighter prospect for the global economy next year means our export sector can continue to be our main growth engine going forward. Secondly, the government spending under SP2 or the Strong Thai scheme will also continue to support the nascent recovery. As we are all aware, we cannot indefinitely rely on fiscal stimulus to keep the economy going so it is our hope that public spending will eventually crowd in private demand so that the recovery will continue after the stimulus tapers off. Now let me turn to the risks associated with this outlook. Despite several good signals, the recovery of the world economy is still subject to a number of downside risks.
In order to generate innovation, innovative people have to be raised in Estonia, brought to Estonia - and kept in Estonia, hence the aim should be to create more high-productivity jobs. •  I maintain that being a part of Europe, we should become quality leaders since we have already lost the price leader position to Asia. This is undoubtedly easier to say than to do. Here we face the threat of outpacing the so-called natural development, which calls for step-by-step industrial development towards manufacturing products with increased added value - such a development is in fact currently under way in Estonia. On the other hand, the payback period of such investments is very long and the experience of several countries (including Finland and Ireland) has shown that success often arrives only decades later. Consequently - if it is our goal to become a quality leader, development activities in this direction should be launched as soon as possible. •  Here we come to the question, WHERE to start? The answer requires a good prediction or even a vision: which areas have enough potential in Estonia that are worth to be given systematic development priority. It is possible that due to its small size Estonia lacks any potential for developing high-technology industry since this would require the emergence of clusters. Even if we manage to develop our own high-technology industry, sufficiently high-level know-how will most likely emerge only in few fields. However, this does not mean that we should develop just a few areas.

But this task can only be performed in cooperation with the Government and other constitutional institutions. Today we can acknowledge that regardless of the fact that both the central bank and other state institutions employ Estonians who are known as great individualists, our cooperation in the field of economic policy has been smooth and yielded results. •  Five years ago I also spoke about the essential developments and necessary reforms facing Estonia. Today, many structural reforms under discussion at the time have been successfully launched, including the pension system reform, which has given a completely new dimension to the saving patterns of the Estonians. As regards the changes that the financial system was facing, my anniversary speech mentioned the plans to set up a universal financial supervisory body, which has also successfully materialised. Today we have a banking sector that is very up-to-date and successful on the international banking scene as well. •  According to the World Economic Forum, Estonia is the most competitive country today among the new European Union member states with its competitiveness index of 4.64 points. With this score Estonia is also ahead of four ‘old’ member states (Spain - 4.47, Italy - 4.38, Portugal - 4.25, and Greece - 4.00), while narrowly falling behind Ireland (4.69). Our open market economy, development of the information society and the financial sector  BIS Review 26/2004  1  as well as the quality of our business environment have been considered Estonia's strongest areas.