samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Muhammad bin Ibrahim: Raising awareness of financial knowledge in Malaysia Welcoming remarks by Mr Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at Karnival Kewangan 2017, Kuala Lumpur, 13 January 2017. * * * It is my honour to be here this morning for the Opening Ceremony of the inaugural Finance Carnival. The carnival is an initiative formed through the collaboration of various ministries, agencies and financial institutions. It aspires to raise the level of public awareness in three important areas: financial services; knowledge of financial management; and consumer protection. I would like to extend my appreciation to Yang Berhormat Datuk Johari bin Abdul Ghani, Second Finance Minister, who has graciously agreed to join us today in officiating the Carnival. Finance has the power to transform lives The pursuit of financial knowledge is a key economic imperative. It also has the ability to transform lives. In today’s world, the ability and knowledge to save, invest and borrow are essential life skills, be it for individuals or businesses. For businesses, including small enterprises, financial knowledge is particularly important in generating income and to secure financing. Various efforts have been undertaken to improve financial inclusion in Malaysia. The results so far are promising. Currently, the majority of Malaysians (over 90 percent) have access to formal financial services. 92% of adults have a savings account, while 98% of users have performing financing accounts.

It is equally important that an equally high level of security be provided for all elements of financial services. Information security in dealings with external suppliers is becoming increasingly critical. The technological vulnerabilities that arise when different technologies are integrated can make it easier for fraudsters to access data. Unfortunately, we can also provide a recent example of this. Therefore, banks should not be reluctant to control compliance by your suppliers and suppliers of services for you, and should not shy away from setting cybersecurity requirements. There is a standard for this. The Bank of Russia issued it in 2018. Compliance with it must now be taken especially seriously. 6/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  We will continue to develop supervision in cyber security. We also plan to develop the practice of conducting cyber drills, i.e., stress testing of information security. The purpose of such tests is to understand whether an organisation can identify a potential attack, quickly identify it, localise it, and eliminate the consequences — and, ultimately, to understand how such an attack could affect the organisation’s financial stability. Our task is protecting customers’ funds. As for the joint infrastructure solutions that Mr Aksakov spoke about, we are ready to discuss them further, including why we do not currently see proposals by the market itself to create such systems for collective use, and we are ready to participate and see what the Bank of Russia can do.
Thirdly, the private and public sector complement one another by filling different roles. While the public sector provides trust and stability, the private sector takes care of innovation. Throughout history, then, occasionally the public sector has had to take the lead in creating changes that are beneficial to society. Fourthly, network and scale effects are important factors to consider within payments. They generate barriers to entry, but also leave room for efficiency gains. Though not new, both effects may have been accentuated by the digitalisation of payments. After the historical walkthrough, I will explain those observations further and put them into the context of our current work on developing the payment infrastructure. Finally, I will say a few words about the Riksbank’s e-krona project and our involvement in international work to improve cross-border payments. Those initiatives are targeted more at end-users of payment services. Yet, both can equally well be related to the lessons just highlighted. 2 [15]  The history of payments – fasten your seatbelts! With the brief time I have at my disposal now, a tour through the history of payments must be limited to picking out a few main developments. However, for those with more time to spend, I can certainly recommend this subject for further study. In addition to useful insights into how we got to where we are now, I dare to say that it is packed with drama unfolding around great historical events. I will cover a few of them here.

The ‘experiment’ was ended by the outbreak of the Civil War when a national banking system was established. Sweden also provides a case in point. Following the collapse of Stockholms Banco, the newly founded Riksbank was not allowed to issue banknotes until 1701.4 Then, as commercial banks started to emerge in the 1830s, they were granted similar concessions. Over a period, notes from ten to fifteen issuers were in circulation, causing much confusion. This was brought to a halt with the Sveriges Riksbank Act from 1897, which ensured the Riksbank its current monopoly – with a unified national currency as a result.5  The rise of financial infrastructures As the number of banks surged, so did the need for structure. In London around 1770, ‘walk clerks’ ran between banks to clear and settle cheques. One day, the story goes, two of them were having lunch at the Five Bells tavern in Lombard Street. Tired after a busy morning, one came with the suggestion that all clerks  3 See Gunnar Wetterberg, ‘’Money and power”, Sveriges Riksbank, Atlantis (2009), and Klas Fregert, ‘’Sveriges  Riksbank: 350 years in the making’’, in Sveriges Riksbank and the History of Central Banking (2018): 90–142, for more about the history of Sveriges Riksbank. 4 From 1701, the bank issued transportsedlar (transport bills). While notes-issuing was authorized in 1701, they became accepted for tax payments in 1726. Notes with a fixed nominal value that did not need to be transferred in writing were issued from 1745.
Developments in the public sector were unexpectedly strong at the beginning of the year, which counteracted the fact that developments in the private sector were weaker than we had expected. The strained economic situation in the public sector indicates that employment there will develop weakly during 2004, while the economic upturn is still not expected to be reflected in any increase in the number of employees in the private sector. The fact that the labour market to some extent lags behind production development in the business sector is a normal part of the economic cycle, but developments in employment in the private sector have so far been slightly weaker than we had expected. Monetary policy can only marginally influence the weak labour market situation in the coming months. However, the situation in the labour market is a central factor in the assessment of demand and thus  2  BIS Review 7/2004  for long-term assessments of inflation. Labour market developments can influence future inflation in several different ways. If the demand for labour remains weak during a longer period and unemployment soars, there is a risk that this will have negative repercussions on household consumption and thus on demand. Households have become more pessimistic during the autumn, both with regard to unemployment and with regard to their private finances. So far we have seen no signs that household demand is about to slacken, but this was a factor we included in the risk assessment in the December Inflation Report.

The conclusion was that underlying inflation excluding energy, which was assessed as the best mirror of cyclically-related inflationary pressure, was expected to be in line with the target 1-2 years ahead, and this was why the repo rate was left unchanged. The information received so far since December does not appear to significantly alter the picture of a recovery in economic growth. However, there may be a risk that the weak labour market situation will last longer than anticipated and have repercussions for growth and inflation through weaker private consumption. Now that we are in the midst of compiling the data on which to base our decision at the February meeting, it looks as though the new information received since December gives scope for a further slight downward adjustment to the forecast of domestic cost pressure. This is because it seems that labour market growth will be somewhat weaker than expected, and thereby also the rate of wage increases, and the fact that productivity growth during the first three quarters appears to have been somewhat more favourable than we had anticipated. The risk of contagion effects via energy prices also appears to have declined. However, as we said, we are in the midst of our forecasting work and not all of the information is complete as yet. Our monetary policy meeting will be held on 5 February and this is when the final decision on the repo rate will be made. Thank you. 4  BIS Review 7/2004
At the start there were 11 member states; today we are 16. Nine other countries have no “opting out” clause and are supposed to enter the euro area when they meet the criteria. We will see what happens. Needless to say that any country that seeks to join EMU will have to fulfil all the Maastricht criteria not only for one year but also on a sustainable basis. Il Sole 24 Ore: How do you judge the mood in the countries that are queuing to enter the euro area? Do you see a broad acceptance of the idea that EMU commits the destiny of a country? Trichet: In some cases there is a clear and broad political consensus to join EMU. In others there is not. In any case I consider that you have to judge the process through the lenses of history. This said, I do believe that all EU institutions and governments should point out the euro area’s meaning in terms of sharing a common destiny. More specifically, we all must understand that we have to fully accept peer surveillance to preserve the good functioning of our monetary union. Il Sole 24 Ore: What about Germany: Convincing the Federal Republic to help Greece was a long and difficult process. Do you think that Germany believes in the common destiny created by the euro? Trichet: I trust that all EMU countries are aware of this fact.

Jean-Claude Trichet: Interview in Il Sole 24 Ore Interview with Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, in Il Sole 24 Ore, conducted by Mr Beda Romano and published on 9 April 2010. *  *  *  Il Sole 24 Ore: Greece is in dire straits as it struggles with a huge public debt and a fall in competitiveness. Some market players and newspaper commentators see Italy as being the next in line to experience a financial crisis in the euro zone. Trichet: Of course, Italy is not at all in the same situation of Greece. Your country has shown resilience in this difficult period. In particular it was able to contain its yearly budget deficit and it has committed to get back to a sustainable situation according to the European rules. The ECB strongly encourages it to implement rigorously this programme. This said, the current crisis has demonstrated that all 16 countries of the euro zone must work hard, in a determined and efficient way, in order to make their economies more flexible and elevate their growth potential thanks to determined structural reforms. Improving labour productivity in particular is good for export growth and job creation. If this had been done more efficiently in the last years better results would have been attained in Italy as well as in the euro area as a whole.
These observations are calling urgently for structural reforms, in particular all the reforms that would augment the flexibility of all markets – labour, goods and services and financial – in the euro area economy. The need for structural reforms Understanding the reasons of these developments is very important. As also stressed by the OECD 5 , the lack of sufficient structural reform in Europe is a major cause of the gap in economic growth between Europe and the US. I will therefore now turn to structural reforms that have the potential to increase both euro area labour productivity growth and labour utilisation and therefore the long run growth potential. The euro area economy is facing a number of important challenges, including rapid technological change, ageing populations as well as accelerating globalisation. Moreover, the long-term sustainability of public finances in the euro area should be improved pursuing pension as well as health care reforms. These challenges will require major efforts to increase the adjustment capacity of the euro area in general and of workers in particular. The adverse consequences arising from an ageing population could only be solved by an extension of the working life and/or substantial inward migration. Other challenges, such as globalisation and increased competition, are also accompanied by increased opportunities: globalisation provides incentives for firms and workers to excel in what they do best while outsourcing some goods and services at lower costs on a global scale, providing consumers with substantial benefits 6 .

To increase labour utilisation and get people into work, necessary labour supply side measures include the reform of tax and benefit systems to address these problems and increase incentives to work. Measures aimed at reconciling motherhood with professional life, such as the provision of child care, may raise participation rates. Furthermore, the use of flexible forms of work such as part-time 8 and temporary work may also provide further working incentives. High unemployment rates in the euro area and in particular high youth unemployment rates, amounting to 17.8% in 2005, clearly suggest the need to spur labour demand. In this context, there is a need to promote wage flexibility and to address labour market rigidities. Furthermore, adjustments to the level of employment protection legislation are needed where they impede the hiring of younger and older workers in particular. Regarding the second priority area for reforms that I would like to mention, increasing competition and establishing efficient and well-functioning product markets is another prerequisite for higher medium to long-term growth. 9 The economic literature generally leads to the conclusion that competition is an important factor explaining both productivity and price developments 10 . A lack of competition harms productivity trends by limiting production efficiency and by reducing the incentive to innovate. Moreover, increased competition is generally associated with a lower price level brought about by a reduction in the mark-ups of firms, for given marginal costs.
Norway has established the Government Petroleum Fund in order to promote long-term stability in government finances and ensure fiscal leeway in the long term. The Government Petroleum Fund also acts as a buffer against fluctuations in petroleum revenues. Swings in oil prices lead to changes in allocations to the Fund. As a large share of petroleum revenues accrues to the state, smaller variations in these revenues will only have a limited effect on the wider economy. This makes the Norwegian economy more robust and in the short term less dependent on oil, at least as long as the government budget is running a substantial surplus. This is part of the reason why Norway seeks to maintain exchange rate stability rather than orienting monetary policy directly towards the objective of price stability. Many countries are struggling with government finances. After several years of large government budget deficits, interest expenditure is laying claim to a considerable portion of tax revenues and thereby limiting the government’s scope for carrying out its tasks. The main challenge to fiscal policy is to eliminate these deficits and reduce government debt and interest expenditure. Norway has had greater fiscal scope for manoeuvre, although this has not solely been used to promote long-term balance. Therefore, Norway established a different division of responsibility in economic policy. As the objective of monetary policy is to maintain a stable exchange rate, fiscal policy has an important responsibility for stabilising the economy.

Gent Sejko: Modernisation of retail payment systems in Albania Welcome address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the Conference on the "Modernisation of retail payment systems in Albania", Tirana, 21 June 2018. * * * Dear Deputy Prime Minister Dear media representatives, Dear participants and colleagues, Welcome to this conference, whose topic, I would say, is a challenge and promotes the modernisation of the retail payments in Albania. The Bank of Albania has constantly noted in its communications that the safe and efficient development of payment systems is a key objective not only to support monetary policy implementation and safeguard financial stability, but also to serve as an important tool for formalised and sustainable economic development. In addition to the focus on payment systems – as a fundamental pillar for the functioning of financial markets and the economy in general – the Bank of Albania is paying increasingly more attention to their development from the perspective of financial inclusion. The main goal in this regard is the broad use of payment instruments in the everyday life of citizens. This new way of development aims to identify and satisfy the needs of the smallest component of the economy – households and enterprises.
6 [20]  of the problems among the general public, market participants and economic policy decision-makers. But it is, of course, necessary that this raised awareness results in concrete measures or changed behaviour that counteracts the financial imbalance. It is doubtful, as far as Sweden is concerned, whether it can be said that this has been the case, at any rate not to such an extent or at such an early stage as could have been hoped for. The fairly modest leaning against the wind that we practised was thus insufficient to halt the build-up of debts and housing prices. Nevertheless, I myself was not prepared to keep the rate any higher than we did in an attempt to achieve this. This was also apparently true of the Executive Board as a whole. If we had set the repo rate significantly higher, the increase in indebtedness would perhaps have stopped more permanently, but, at the same time, there is a severe risk that the development of the economy would also have been significantly worsened. Perhaps even more importantly, the development of inflation would have been even weaker than it actually was and it would have been even more difficult to bring it up and maintain confidence in the inflation target. One further conclusion, or lesson, is that a policy that leans against the wind requires that there is confidence in the inflation target.

Both happened in a critical moment, only a few months before our accession to the ERM II, at the time when we were taking the last structural reform measures that we were obligated to implement. Additionally, the pandemic caused the EU focus to shift to other pressing issues. It is with great effort that we managed to overcome all these shocks and obstacles that spring. However, just as we thought that everything was under control, we were taken by another surprise: our project was once again subjected to a test. In the second half of 2021, due to an uneven post-pandemic recovery and supply chain disturbances, global inflation picked up and inflation rates became much more dispersed across EU member states. The unfavourable inflationary dynamics was further exacerbated by the Russian aggression of Ukraine in February 2022, which happened only a few months before Croatia's fulfilment of the nominal convergence criteria was to be assessed by the Convergence Report. Given that the Maastricht price stability criterion was a moving target, the situation was tense until April last year, when we finally received positive news that this criterion had also been fulfilled. Some might call this a final stroke of luck, but it was well-deserved, especially considering all the effort, commitment, organisational skills and discipline demonstrated throughout the life cycle of the euro project. Saying goodbye to the Croatian kuna was perhaps a more sentimental moment for me than for other citizens.
3 [5]  The idea of all these seven measures is that together they will function as a type of insurance for the Swedish economy. This is a point that needs to be reiterated. The purpose of the measures is to prevent problems on the financial markets which in turn exacerbate the situation for Swedish companies. The Riksbank is supplying banks with money almost free of charge to create the conditions for companies to gain access to loans if and when they most need them. Banks having good liquidity themselves and not seeing a need to participate in the Riksbank’s programme can be a positive sign. It means that companies should not have problems obtaining bank loans and the Riksbank’s measures act as an insurance that this will continue to be the case. Another point that is worth reiterating is the magnitude of our measures. The programme of corporate lending amounts to SEK 500 billion in total, which is more than the sum of all the loans currently taken out by small and medium-sized enterprises put together. Added to this are new asset purchases of up to SEK 300 billion, almost doubling the Riksbank’s bond holdings. The Riksbank also has the possibility to, via an agreement with the US Federal Reserve, lend US dollars corresponding to SEK 600 billion. This is more than the total value of the Riksbank’s gold and currency reserves.

In addition, banks are being offered the opportunity to borrow an unlimited amount of money each week against collateral at three months’ maturity at an interest rate of 0.20 percentage points above the repo rate, which is at zero per cent. In addition to this, the Executive Board has decided that the Riksbank will extend its purchases of securities by up to SEK 300 billion up until December. The Riksbank normally buys government bonds. In these exceptional circumstances, however, it is important to ensure that all major markets continue to function. For this reason, the Riksbank has now also begun to purchase mortgage bonds and will purchase municipal bonds. In the last few days, corporate bonds and commercial paper issued by Swedish non-financial corporations have also been included in the asset-buying programme. These bond purchases increase the access to credit in the economy in general and future purchases of corporate bonds and commercial paper will provide additional support to Swedish companies in particular. Just like the Riksbank’s previous purchases of government bonds, the new purchases will also help to keep monetary policy expansionary and to stimulate activity in the economy. Given the global nature of the crisis, it is also important to ensure that there is access to US dollars (USD) in the Swedish financial system. To strengthen access to one of the most important currencies for Swedish companies, the Riksbank has announced that we will lend up to USD 60 billion.