samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The organisational structure for the regulatory and supervisory functions within the Bank were realigned in November 2006 to move from the previous institutional based approach, to one that integrates the Bank's regulatory functions for the different financial sectors under its purview along functional lines. The new functional based, cross-sector regulatory structure allows us to modernise the regulatory framework for both the insurance and banking sectors at a more equal pace. The increased synergies created will enable the Bank to apply the best regulatory practices in both the banking sector to the insurance sectors. Under the new structure, the Bank is able to leverage on the more advanced developments in either sector to enhance the regulatory framework for both sectors, simultaneously if possible. At the same time, it allows us to develop and train our personnel to be better equipped in the constantly changing operating environment. These efforts, will promote a more consistent regulatory regime for both the banking and insurance sectors. A positive side effect that can accrue from this move is the enhancement of public confidence on the insurance sector which augurs well towards increasing the level of insurance penetration. Achieving a more integrated approach to cross-sector regulation was relatively easy in Malaysia as Bank Negara is the single regulator for both the banking and insurance industries. In other countries, greater coordination and collaboration between separate regulatory agencies can similarly contribute towards a more consistent approach to regulation and supervision across sectors in dealing with similar risks.

First, private partnerships such as that between Clearstream and SGX, allow customers to better  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  allocate and optimise collateral resources in Asia by enabling collateral to be managed on a fully automated and real-time basis. Second, central banks have also stepped in with cross-border collateral arrangements to permit the deployment of head-office cash and government securities to support local currency liquidity requirements of their branches and subsidiaries overseas. b.  Futurisation. Even before most jurisdictions introduce trading mandates, some segments of the OTC derivatives markets are already coming together to create exchange traded products. One example lies in Asian currency futures contracts traded on exchanges like SGX. With the introduction of new listed contracts, market participants have chosen to futurise some of their rolling forward contracts. Compared with OTC markets, exchange-traded futures have more transparent pricing, and are faster to execute and more cost effective. 14. These developments demonstrate that commercial incentives can be brought into alignment with regulatory priorities, which aim to reduce aggregate risk in financial markets and promote greater financial soundness and stability. 15. We also see promise for integration in infrastructure finance and insurance to produce exciting outcomes. 16.
Thomas Jordan: The various waves of money market turbulence and the measures taken by central banks Introductory remarks by Mr Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the half-yearly media news conference, Geneva, 19 June 2008. *  *  *  The money markets are the lifeblood of the international financial system. Properly functioning money markets are absolutely essential for the solvency of banks, as well as for the effective implementation of monetary policy. Hence, events on the money markets since the onset of the financial turmoil have been a particular focus of central banks’ attention. So far, there have been three waves of turbulence. At the time of the last news conference, we were almost at the height of the second wave. In the meantime we have experienced a third wave, which peaked in April. An appropriate barometer of the health of the money market is the difference between the three-month Libor and the three-month (T)OIS rate (tom-next/overnight indexed swap). This difference reflects the credit and liquidity premium on unsecured money market trades compared to purely derivative business with virtually no counterparty risk. With the help of chart 1, which can be regarded as a “fever curve”, I would now like to look back at how events unfolded, and comment on the measures which the central banks took in response. The first wave peaked in September 2007.

This means that movements in the Libor that are not in line with the SNB’s monetary policy objectives have to be countered with a change in repo rates. Thus, over the course of the turbulence, we consistently offset changes in Libor risk premia with changes in the repo rate, as shown in chart 4. For this reason, the Libor remained in the middle of the target band during the whole episode. The Swiss franc Libor was much more stable during the turmoil than the Libor for other currencies. This simply means that we were able to protect the Swiss economy from part of the crisis-induced increase in risk premia. Libor criticised Recently, some market observers have questioned the information value of the Libor. The Libor for all major currencies is fixed daily in London by the British Bankers Association  2  BIS Review 80/2008  (BBA) on the basis of a survey of top-rated international banks. Critics argued that some banks would report unduly low Libor rates, in an effort to talk up their creditworthiness. Others claimed that the rates were too high because the panel of reporting banks was not sufficiently representative. These criticisms almost exclusively concerned the dollar Libor. The BBA has found no evidence of a systematic distortion of the Libor, and has announced that it is leaving the fixing method for the Libor unchanged. However, it will strengthen governance of the Libor fixing process, especially the monitoring of individual banks’ reports.
Caleb M Fundanga: Promoting financial inclusiveness Opening remarks by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, to the second AFRACA Central Banks’ Forum, Livingstone, 23-25 September 2008. * • • • • • • • • • • • • •  *  *  The Guest of honour; Honourable Ng’andu P. Magande, MP Minister of Finance and National Planning; Your Worship the Mayor, Mrs Grace Shafik; Provincial Minister, Hon Daniel Munkombwe; Permanent Secretary, Southern Province, Mr Darius Hakayobe; Deputy Governor-Operations, Dr Denny Kalyalya; Chairperson; The Secretary General of the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA), Mrs Mary Nandazi; Co-operating partners; Distinguished invited guests from Central Banks; Resource Persons; Chief Executive Officers of Banks and Non bank financial institutions; Distinguished invited guests; Ladies and gentlemen;  On behalf of the Bank of Zambia and indeed on my own behalf, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you all to this important African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) Conference. To our colleagues from outside Zambia, I wish to extend a special welcome to you to Zambia, in particular to Livingstone, our tourist capital. Like the rest of Zambia, Livingstone is a city of tranquility with an easy-going African charm. The city is not short of interesting sites and places to visit. It hosts the Victoria Falls, also known among the locals as “Mosi-o-Tunya, the Smoke that Thunders” and is one of the world’s seven natural wonders!

But our approach to those forecasts has evolved as we have gradually oriented ourselves in the new economic territory we have found ourselves in. In our first Monetary Policy Report (MPR) following the outbreak of the pandemic, published in May 2020 (shown in orange), the impact of Covid was still so uncertain that we felt unable to publish a single central forecast. Instead what we published was a “plausible illustrative economic scenario”, together with estimates of the sensitivity of the economy to some key variables. The scenario and accompanying estimates were nothing like our usual detailed map of the outlook. But they served as an initial outline of what a future map might look like. As time passed, and as Figure 1 illustrates, we began to fill in the picture. By August 2020 (shown in grey) we felt able to publish a forecast once more; but it was a forecast that came with a higher-than-usual degree of uncertainty and a larger-than-usual downside skew, as captured in our published fan charts. By November (yellow) some of those downside risks had crystallised, in the form of a new rise in Covid cases and an associated increase in restrictions. And while by February 2021 (dark blue) the vaccination programme had begun, it was too early to be certain about how successful it would be, and the risks remained to the downside.
Within Asia, structural reforms have also increased the importance of domestic sources of growth. Asia’s rising domestic demand needs to be supported by the development of a much broader range of financing options for healthcare, education and retirement. This will result in the reduced need for high levels of precautionary savings, which in turn will contribute towards strengthening domestic demand. In addition, with rapid industrialisation, Asia is also experiencing an unprecedented rate of urbanisation. Between 1990 and 2010, Asia-Pacific’s urban population increased from 29 percent to 43 percent. It is projected that another 1.1 billion people will be living in cities over the next 20 years, increasing the urban population to 55 percent by 2030. The region will also be faced with an ageing population in the years ahead, with Asia accounting for 62 percent of the global elderly population by 2050. This transition is already experienced in countries like Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. But other countries in the region are also converging at a fast rate. Fundamental reforms in social and economic policies are now being pursued by most governments in the region to avert the risk that Asia’s population will “grow old before growing rich”. Such reforms seek to achieve higher levels of income needed to sustain adequate provisions for welfare as the effects of ageing on the workforce and as rising healthcare and pension costs begin to set in.

Going forward, innovations in insurance solutions will also need to take into account the higher regulatory expectations for more transparency, stronger financial buffers against unexpected losses and the requirements to do more to ensure that products offered are suitable to the different customer segments. Regulators will also be applying a much higher level of scrutiny on complex insurance products that increase risks to financial stability. Simplifying insurance products and institutional structures, and creating a strong risk culture in which managing risks is a shared responsibility within institutions, will be important goals to ensure that the risks facing an insurer are well understood and effectively managed. The third point concerns the far reaching implications of climate change for the insurance industry. This also calls for the industry to pursue a different path from what history has shown in determining the growth strategies for the future. Climate change has been described as one of the biggest risks to the insurance industry. The cost of climate change, without action, is estimated to be at least 5% of global GDP each year, not to mention its significant impact on human society. Some of the effects of climate change are already being felt in increased frequency and severity of weather related natural disasters, water scarcity and crop failures. Asia’s exposure to climate change effects is also anticipated to increase. In 2011, Asian countries accounted for 70 percent of 380 billion US dollars in economic losses from natural disasters, however only a quarter of that was insured.
Over the past five years, the real exchange rate has moved within a relatively narrow band little more than five percentage points wide. Except for the post-September 11 period, when the Swiss franc appreciated markedly, the external value of the franc has largely reflected economic fundamentals. In fact, even the post-9/11 safe-haven effect was relatively mild compared to what we experienced in the past, during the seventies and the eighties, for instance. 4. A new international monetary order  I believe that one could make the case that the introduction of the euro has brought about a new international monetary order, that it has produced an element of stability that benefits many countries, not just Europe’s immediate neighbours, but nations around the globe. As we have seen, movements in the dollar/mark exchange rate were magnified as far as the Swiss franc is concerned in the past, but are much dampened today. When the euro depreciated against the dollar, the Swiss franc did so too, but by a much lesser degree. And later, when the euro appreciated against the dollar, the franc appreciated as well, but again to a lesser extent. In other words, our effective exchange rate has been less affected, the movement of the dollar being offset, at least to some extent, by a movement of the euro in the opposite direction.

In weighing up this decision, interest rate reductions among some of Iceland's trading countries in recent months have also been taken into account. Exchange rate To reiterate, the main objective of monetary policy is price stability. Since the exchange rate is an important determinant of prices, exchange rate stability has been an intermediate objective of monetary policy. During the first four months of last year the króna appreciated somewhat, but this trend was reversed in the middle of June and the currency was under pressure for most of the time until the end of the year. It depreciated by almost 9% from the end of 1999 to the end of 2000. To some extent the depreciation was triggered by fishing quota cutbacks and the resulting deterioration in the economic outlook. Demand for foreign exchange also outstripped supply because of last year's current account deficit, which is estimated at ISK 68.9 billion, as well as heavy investment by Icelanders in foreign securities amounting to almost ISK 40 billion net. Pension funds play the leading role in these investments. By the end of 2000, the real exchange rate of the króna had fallen below its average for the past twenty years. Actions in the foreign exchange market Under the prevailing circumstances, the Central Bank considered it necessary to take action to counter the depreciation of the króna. Besides raising its interest rates, the Bank intervened in foreign exchange markets thirteen times after the middle of 2000 in order to cushion against sharp fluctuations.
This initiative addresses all the three shortcomings that I have just mentioned. The FSB standard contains a comprehensive list of tools and powers which every national resolution authority should have. This means that they aim to improve the national regimes, while at the same time providing for convergence. The FSB key attributes also strengthen, in my view, the group resolution concept, by envisaging that recovery and resolution plans also have a global perspective. Making the national supervisors and resolution authorities plan together how the problems of their groups could be handled would already be a big step forward. In that context, the authorities will also be asked to take into consideration the effects of cross-border contagion in crisis scenarios and simultaneous stress situations in several significant markets. I would also highlight the fact that authorities will also have the right to improve the resolvability of large and complex groups. Let me recall here that Lehman Brothers had a presence in some 50 countries and comprised almost 3000 legal entities before the crisis. Simplifying the structure of global systemic groups could well be extremely useful in preparing for future crises, but authorities will clearly need to work very closely with one another to implement such modifications with great care. Should the group get into difficulties, the Crisis Management Groups could indeed be helpful in promoting cooperation. With such a forum in place, there would at least be a chance of authorities reaching a consensus on how to resolve a cross-border bank.

I have no doubt that the quality of the discussions we have today will allow us to deepen our understanding of these challenges and, hopefully, allow us to draw some useful conclusion in terms of economic policy. I leave the floor now to Mr. Isidro González, Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, thanking him as well as you all for your presence here today, and thanking Mr. Senén Florensa, President of the Executive Committee of IEMed, for the cooperation in the organisation of this event. Now, Isidro, the floor is yours. 3/3
So whatever my own intellectual interest in helicopter money, as a Governing Council member I have a fair deal of skepticism and circumspection. So we’re not near the point where the ECB could, for example, decide to finance by itself the big public investment boost it has been calling for? Say, by lending € billion or more to the European Investment Bank (EIB)? The theoretical example you cite underlines the problem I just mentioned of the borderline between monetary and fiscal policy. We are already supporting investment in the euro area through our monetary policy. We have brought down the entire yield curve and we are buying securities of public entities such as the EIB as part of our asset purchase programme. But it is absolutely not our role to decide which investment should go ahead, which bridge should be repaired or which school built, nor whether the investment should be private or public. Ben Bernanke, in his memoirs, suggests that if the United States and Europe took different paths out of the crisis, that is partly because Europe’s monetary policy in the first years was too tight, and its fiscal policy too strict at the wrong moment… I’m not for rewriting history, but the ECB and governments reacted with the tools they had at the time.

I think banks have been reassured about the possible negative impact of negative rates on some of them. They know we will not take rates into absurdly negative territory. But we can never rule out further moves. That would not be credible anyway. Over the last few months the ECB has been suggesting that it has done its part in the euro zone recovery, and has been asking governments to do theirs. At the same time, it insists it could do even more if needed, and that its toolbox is far from empty. Isn’t that partly contradictory? The roles of the ECB and governments are different. Our job is to bring inflation back to its near-2% level. That’s our mandate; you could say that’s our contract. Whenever we have doubts that the goal will be reached, we act. Monetary policy has a short-to-medium-term horizon. We think it is up to governments to act to foster long-term growth. According to the European Commission, potential growth in the euro area is at around 1% today. It was almost twice that in the years before the crisis. And we think that structural and fiscal policy must be used wherever there is scope to do so, in terms of both quantity and quality. But it is not the ECB’s role to go into detail about what governments should do. The founding treaties are explicit and give us different roles. The idea that the central bank should be the gendarme of economic policy among euro area countries simply doesn’t work.
24 In addition, there are other structural forces, such as population aging, that may impact bond markets and,  hence, the transmission of monetary policy. See, for example, Praet, P. (2018), “Economic policymaking under uncertainty", speech at the “la Caixa” Chair for Economics and Society conference, Madrid, 17 October. 25 Our actions to protect the environment begin with reducing our own ecological footprint. In 2007 we adopted an  environmental policy and registered with the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme. For more, see ECB (2018), “2018 update of the ECB’s Enviornmental Statement”, October. 26 See, for example, Villeroy de Galhau, F. (2015), “Green Finance – A New Frontier for the 21st Century”, speech  given at the international climate risk conference for supervisors, Amsterdam, 6 April; and Knot, K. (2017), “Sustainability: a role for central banks?”, speech at the CEP/DNB workshop ‘Central banking & Green Finance’, Amsterdam, 28 November. 27 For example, we are part of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. The ECB is also a member of a technical expert group that is assisting the European Commission in establishing an EU-wide classification system, or taxonomy, for green assets. This taxonomy has the potential to increase transparency, discourage “greenwashing” and improve market pricing of both climate and transition risks. See European Commission (2018), “Action plan: financing sustainable growth”, March. 28 For a more general overview, see ECB (2006), “Portfolio Management at the ECB”, Monthly Bulletin, April.

Restoring market  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  confidence, in turn, requires achieving fiscal sustainability while spurring economic growth. Some have described the task as akin to redesigning an aircraft in mid-flight amidst severe turbulence! 7. Nonetheless, important progress has been achieved and the situation today is visibly better than it was even six months ago. •  The European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transactions programme has materially reduced the tail risk of a disorderly breakup of the monetary union. •  Sovereign bond yields in Italy and Spain have come down, on average, some 200 basis points from their peak levels in the middle of last year. •  Bank deposits in the peripheral countries of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have shown signs of stabilisation. 8. But Europe remains mired in recession. There is still no compelling growth agenda. Domestic demand is weak amidst fiscal consolidation. Banks are not lending amidst an uncertain investment environment. And several structural issues remain unresolved. It will not take much to reignite financial market stresses. In short, the crisis in the Eurozone is not over. Japan: dealing with deflation, demographics, and a natural disaster 9. Japan has a different set of problems. Its economy has recovered less than two-thirds of the output lost during the crisis. It has fallen prey to weak external demand and is still reeling from the aftershocks of a major natural disaster. 10. Japan is caught in the pincer grip of prolonged deflation and unfavourable demographics.