samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This pattern reflects the expectation that, in an environment of weaker growth in the euro area and globally, underlying cost, wage and price pressures in the euro area should remain modest. The Governing Council continues to view the risks to the medium-term outlook for price developments as broadly balanced. On the upside, the main risks relate to further increases in indirect taxes and administered prices, owing to the need for fiscal consolidation in the coming years, and possible increases in commodity prices. The main downside risks relate to the impact of weaker than expected growth in the euro area and globally. Turning to the monetary analysis, taking the appropriate medium-term perspective, the underlying pace of monetary expansion continues to be moderate. The annual growth rate of M3 decreased to 2.0% in November 2011, after 2.6% in October. As in the previous three months, monetary developments in November were affected by the heightened uncertainty in financial markets. The annual growth rate of loans to the private sector, adjusted for loan sales and securitisation, decreased to 1.9% in November, from 3.0% in October. The annual growth rates of loans to non-financial corporations and loans to households, adjusted for loan sales and securitisation, both moderated in November, and stood at 1.8% and 2.3% respectively, with slightly negative monthly flows observed for MFI loans to non-financial corporations.

On top of this system, banks or similar credit institutions can create money by lending, more or less as they do today. But it is uncertain how credit institutions will behave in a more decentralised system such as this one. It also raises new questions about where the responsibility for licensing and regulation should lie, especially if the system operates independently of national borders. This poses a risk of increased instability and more frequent crisis. Norges Bank’s role Chart: Norges Bank is tasked with ensuring: Norges Bank plays a key role in the financial system. Norges Bank is responsible for keeping inflation low and stable. That secures confidence in the Norwegian krone. We are also responsible for promoting financial stability and an efficient and secure payment system. Banks settle obligations between themselves over accounts in the central bank. If necessary, we can 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  provide banks with additional liquidity. At the same time, our role as the bankers’ bank gives us a channel into the wider economy, which we use to implement monetary policy. A change in our policy rate will pass through to banks’ lending and deposit rates. Norges Bank closely monitors developments in the banking industry and the financial system. Innovation and competition can bring better and cheaper services, but can also bring risks associated with, for example, cybercrime, data protection and financial stability. There is also the risk that some participants gain substantial market power.
New legislations, both in the central bank act and financial institution act will empower the central bank to have much more ability to manage the nature of commercial banks and will follow the principle of transparency when we shall BIS Review 111/2000  2  be able to do much more for such an important event as a national election and hopefully then commercial banks would be much less inclined to cooperate in less than virtuous activities. Whilst it is probably true central banks of the modern era spend so much time in trying to stabilise national events, the biggest single cause of untold misery, poverty, death and famine in the modern economy is probably neither disease nor natural events, but it is the ever more frequent financial and currency crises and many central banks in many economies have been helpless in this prevention. There are now many international fora to tackle these problems, but all of them now are bent on making emerging markets behave themselves better with a better system, monitor themselves better and monitor what’s going on in the rest of the world, the latter is actually an impossibility. All financial transaction of significance is now computerised. A central bank with any kind of competence will have good access within the nation and understand and manage their own destiny. Given a reasonable government and even minimal legal system, each nation should be able to keep peace and stability. But international transaction is something else.

And the Bank now has a comprehensive set of market wide and bilateral facilities. These developments give the Bank tremendous flexibility to support financial institutions during periods of stress. As you will see from the FPC’s published record, it was in that context that the Bank decided to announce two additional ILTR operations in the event of a “yes” vote in the referendum on Scottish Independence, as a precautionary measure to backstop sterling market liquidity. As part of its contingency planning, the Bank assessed its ability to provide liquidity support to the banking system should it become necessary and concluded that the range of tools within the existing framework offered sufficient flexibility to respond. But the Bank is not standing still; we are continuing to develop our liquidity insurance framework to ensure that it can react to a wide range of liquidity challenges. First, as part of the strategy to broaden liquidity provision, the Bank has committed to consider the feasibility of offering Shari’ah compliant facilities. All banks must hold an adequate stock of liquid assets to meet prudential regulations and, as the most liquid assets in the economy are the reserves held by banks and building societies on account at the Bank, it would be beneficial to Shari’ah compliant banks to have access to our balance sheet. There are significant challenges to this work: for example, in designing a Shar’iah compliant deposit account which has similar economic properties to interest-paying reserve accounts and in identifying sufficient Shari’ah compliant collateral to support lending facilities.
The scenario I described above was that encountered by the Governing Council of the ECB at its meeting in the first week of June and required resolute and more expansionary monetary policy action. Such action was required because, although available indicators still pointed to medium-term inflation expectations remaining anchored at levels compatible with the definition of price stability, if inflation becomes entrenched at excessively low levels for an extended period, there is a significant risk that these expectations will ultimately be for deflation and a long period of low growth. And we know from Japan’s experience that once this disanchoring has taken place, it is very difficult to return to normal. Before June, the ECB had already reduced its policy interest rates to very low levels on several occasions. The rate on the main refinancing operations stood at 0.25% and that on the deposit facility at zero. The ECB had also embraced the policy of forward guidance, both in the area of liquidity, by announcing in advance that it would extend the fixed-rate tender procedures with full allotment, and in the area of interest rates. Here, forward guidance was introduced in July last year when the uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve’s intentions led many investors and analysts to anticipate a change in monetary policy stance not only in the United States but also in the euro area – a change evidently not on the ECB’s agenda. The ECB had also resorted to assets purchases before June.

The latest programme – introduced and promoted by Prime Minister Abe – included among its three pillars an ambitious monetary expansion plan which, with official interest rates close to zero, is being implemented through growth of the monetary base. Although the latest data show an incipient return to positive rates of growth and inflation, evidently monetary policy in Japan is still far removed from the threshold marking not only a change of cycle, but also a move towards a less expansionary stance, in contrast to the cases of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. The monetary policy of the European Central Bank The specific characteristics of current euro area monetary circumstances stem from the complexity and depth of the crisis and the slow pace at which the euro area is emerging from 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  the crisis in comparison with other areas. Following the negative data of 2012 and 2013, the projections published by the ECB last June indicate that the euro area will not recoup precrisis levels of GDP until the end of next year. However, the recovery in employment in the euro area as a whole will not be completed in 2015. Since end-2011 the inflation rate has moved on a declining trend. It stands at an all-time low and the available projections indicate that it will remain, for the foreseeable time horizon, far from the benchmark of 2% which, in the medium term, marks the price stability target governing the ECB’s actions.
According to the Banco de España 2018 Annual Claims Report, published last Wednesday, the number of claims processed by the Bank last year fell by more than 50% on 2017 to close to 19,700.1 Nonetheless, the total percentage of rectifications by banks relative to those estimated by the Banco de España was 70.6%, a similar percentage to that of 2017. 1  In any event it should be borne in mind that, since 2013, the annual claims figures have shown strong year-to-year oscillations, generally linked to the impact of specific legal rulings. 14/15  Business model Evidently, banks should analyse their current business models with a view to assessing to what extent they respond to this new technological and customer-relations reality, but also to identifying their strengths and weaknesses. To conduct this analysis, the above-mentioned management information is needed, which depends, in turn, on the quality of systems. Consequently, technology becomes an objective of the change in business model and a prerequisite for such change to occur, hence its central role. Naturally, another prerequisite worth mentioning is governance, without which all these changes will be destined for failure. Importantly, reflection on the business model should be individualised, and adapted to the particular characteristics of each bank. Indeed, the results of a theme-based review by the Single Supervisory Mechanism on profitability and business models show that there is no single approach and that there are differences in strategies among those banks with the best profitability results.

As we have witnessed in some cases in the recent past, the holding of these securities by individuals entails problems in a context of crisis, turning them even into an obstacle for the institution’s “resolvability”. And that is exactly the opposite of what the rule originally sought. The Banco de España is determined to prevent this type of past situation from recurring. We should not make the same mistakes again. For these reasons, the challenge of covering these issues is greater for smaller-sized banks, which have a scant presence on the markets and are more geared to the retail segment. I think it is important that banks, in particular those with less access to the markets, should take advantage of those windows in which investors’ appetite for this type of asset increases, so as to bring forward as far as possible the issuance calendar. One final aspect I wish to mention is the cost of these issues and of liabilities in general. The latest Banco de España Financial Stability Report offers the findings of a study on European banks which conclude that the higher the level of the CET1 capital ratio, the lower debt issuance costs are. 9/15  This effect increases as debt instruments become more akin to capital instruments. As can be seen in the chart, if the CET1 ratio increases by 1 pp, a 0.3% reduction may be expected in the cost of issuing instruments eligible as Tier 1.
Mr Nyberg comments on how EMU may affect the Swedish housing loan market and its financing  Speech by Mr Lars Nyberg, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Föreningssparbanken in Warsaw on 14 October 1999. *  *  *  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come here and give some points of view on how EMU may affect the Swedish housing loan market and its financing. This is undeniably an issue which we have every reason to take an interest in whether we take part in the monetary union or not. One of the ideas with EMU is to create a more efficient market for goods and services where competition is increasing and consumers obtain better products at lower prices. In the housing loan market, this should mean that borrowers expect a greater range of products, more suppliers and lower interest rates. How should the Swedish housing loan institutions handle this challenge? Competition for customers As we know, the national housing loan markets in Europe look rather different, which is illustrated by the following diagram (figure 1). In countries such as Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the total outstanding stock of loans with mortgages in property totalled over 50% of GDP. In other countries, including Greece and Italy, the equivalent figure is under 10%. The differences depend on factors such as the systems of rules, tax legislation and market structure which vary from country to country.

Securitisation means that a given loan stock with the collateral pertaining to it is lifted out of the balance sheet in the housing loan institution and invested in a company separately created for the purpose (a so-called special purpose vehicle), which is then financed in the market by issuing bonds. This company has a clearly defined risk scenario and does not carry out any activity besides holding the specified loans. It need not therefore be subject to the capital adequacy rules that apply for housing loan institutions. Assume that the housing loan institution must set aside four million kronor of a loan stock of 100 million while the market accepts financing the securitised stock with a capital of 1 million kronor in the company created for the purpose. If the stock provides a return of SEK400,000 after financing and operating expenses, this gives a return on capital in the housing loan institution of 10% before tax. The same loan invested in the special company will provide a return on capital of 40% before tax. A buffer for investors can also be added on via credit guarantees, which further reduce the requirement of equity. A number of objections can be raised to this example, but it serves well to illustrate the driving mechanism behind a securitisation. In practice there are many difficulties.
Earlier today, I met with a number of Queens business leaders, and the leadership of HANAC, the Hellenic American Action Committee. Following this visit to Queens College, I’m headed to the Queens Chamber of Commerce to meet with others in the business community. Subsequently, I’ll tour the manufacturing floor of Steinway & Sons piano factory. The agenda for these visits is always packed, but that’s part of the point – to meet with a diverse array of people in order to get a comprehensive picture of economic conditions and issues in the regions we serve and a fuller understanding of the major concerns. This is our second trip to the Borough of Queens in the past few years and recent trips have also taken us throughout our District, to Upstate New York, Northern New Jersey, Long Island, Fairfield County, Staten Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx. These outreach trips complement the ongoing efforts of the New York Fed to assess conditions in our region, which I will discuss shortly.

Chart 4: Investment consistently weaker post-crises Average financial recession Cumulative change (per cent)  Average normal recession  20 15 10 5 0 -5 0  1  2  3  -10  4  5 Years  -15 -20 -25 -30 Source: Jordá, O., Schularick, M. and Taylor, A. (2013), ‘When Credit Bites Back’, Journal of Money,Credit and Banking, Vol. 45, Issue s2. Notes: The chart shows the cumulative change in per capita investment. The grey shaded area shows a 95% confidence interval around the average normal recession. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  8  Chart 5: UK, US and euro-area capital overhangs being worked off  UK capital to output ratio  Euro area capital to output ratio Euro area trend capital to output ratio US capital to output ratio US trend capital to output ratio Per cent 340  Per cent 130  UK trend capital to output ratio  120  320  110  300  100  280  90 80  260  70  240  60  220  50 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015  200 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015  Sources: BEA, OECD, ONS and Bank calculations.
The Pact has been constructed with a view to generating so much pressure on Member States to put government finances in order that sanctions will never be necessary. A knotty problem when constructing the Pact was how to make the requirements sufficiently strict without placing undue restrictions on national fiscal policies. This is all the more important when monetary policy is no longer available at national level, so that the task of adjustment falls more heavily in practice on fiscal policy. OECD estimates indicate that in a “normal” economic downturn, the cyclical budget balance in EU countries weakens by 1-1.5 per cent of GDP. Some budgetary discretion is therefore needed so that there is a margin for automatic stabilisers to act when activity is falling. The conclusion is that the trade-off seems reasonable but the Pact does make it necessary to achieve a balanced budget or a surplus relatively soon. Under these circumstances, the Swedish government’s ambition to establish an annual budget surplus of 2 per cent over the business cycle is commendable. Fiscal policy accordingly faces new challenges and it is not all that easy to tell just what may happen. When monetary policy ceases to be a national instrument, fiscal policy will have to play a greater part in stabilisation policy.

Looking at our experience over the last decade, there is a good case for bringing financial stability higher in our priorities. That may imply, in particular, that, when assessing the economic and financial environment, central banks should take a longer term perspective and be more alert to incipient financial imbalances. •  I would note, in passing, that the Eurosystem is well equipped to take such a perspective. Our "two pillar "approach allows us to look permanently at the dynamics of money and credit aggregates, which are essential to detect both long term risks to price stability and potential threats to financial stability. •  But more should be done. It is now broadly accepted that a "macro prudential" approach should be taken when implementing financial supervision. That means looking both at system wide implications of our prudential decisions and their impact on financial imbalances and the real economy. •  Central banks have a major role to play in this process for four reasons: (1) they have an incentive to act, since well functioning financial markets are essential for the transmission of monetary policy; (2) being equipped to permanently look both at financial markets and economic cycles they may have an informational advantage in analyzing their interaction; (3) there independence allows them to produce dispassionate and candid assessments of risks; (4)and, finally, their proximity to the banking system provides them with an intimate knowledge of financial dynamics.
Tony Latter: Derivatives from a Central Bank perspective Speech by Mr Tony Latter, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Seminar Programme of the FOW Derivatives Expo, Hong Kong, 5 November 2001 *  *  *  Introduction Why may central banks be interested in derivatives? Although it is dangerous to generalise, and no two central banks may see them in precisely the same light, there are certain aspects of derivatives in which central banks, including the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, probably have a common interest. I should like to review some of these today. For present purposes one does not need to be too precise as to what is meant by derivatives, save to note that the focus here is only on financial derivatives, although these do of course share many of the same basic characteristics as commodity or other derivatives. The textbooks give various definitions of a financial derivative: for instance, that it is a contract the value of which depends on or derives from the value of some underlying financial asset or index; or that it is an instrument which does not constitute ownership but only a promise or option to convey ownership. At its widest, the definition could embrace all futures, forwards, swaps, options, warrants, convertibles, asset-backed securities and so on, and all combinations or variations of those.

If, indeed, the bilateral exchange rate arrangement does not of itself matter much in the long-term determination of price competitiveness, why not anyway tie your currency in some way to that of your closest neighbour or major trading partner, as a matter of convenience, in the expectation of savings in transaction costs and of other synergies which would benefit both sides, independently of any arguments about price competitiveness? There are some fairly compelling arguments in favour of such an arrangement. The elimination of currency exposure and transaction costs would doubtless be welcomed. Prima facie one would expect resultant gains in the generation of mutually beneficial trade. One may recall that this was one of the principal factors justifying the introduction of the euro. For Hong Kong, however, both the United States and Mainland China are major trading partners, so there would, in this context, be offsetting effects from merely switching the peg from one currency to the other. On the other hand, there are some significant examples of economies which retain a currency independent of that of their main trading partner without obvious disadvantage. Take Canada and Mexico for example. The United States is a considerably more important trading partner to both Canada and Mexico than is China to Hong Kong, and the financial linkages are probably stronger too, but the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso remain separate from the US dollar, and the Canadian and Mexican economies do not appear to be disadvantaged.