samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
These reforms, in turn, would contribute to progress in fiscal consolidation, as they would enhance the perception of the sustainability of public finances and would reduce the degree of sacrifice implicit in the necessary fiscal austerity that must be maintained in the coming years. There are several fields in which the Spanish economy requires an overhaul of its structures, to make them more consistent with our membership of a monetary area and with a highly competitive and globalised world economy. Two such fields are the labour market and the financial system, on which I shall elaborate in detail later on in my address. Correcting the inefficiencies weighing down on the functioning of our labour market is of paramount importance since, as the market is currently structured, the obstacles to gaining competitiveness and generating sustainable employment are patently clear. In particular, these shortcomings have meant that the adjustment of the economy in the recent crisis has fallen disproportionately on employment as a result, among other reasons, of the scant sensitivity of collective bargaining to the specific situation of firms. The extent of these rigidities is not merely cyclical; their effects are largely permanent as they force firms and workers out of the market, causing lasting damage to productive capacity and human capital. Last week the government approved a series of measures aimed at correcting these inefficiencies, specifically at reducing duality in hiring and at reinforcing companies’ internal flexibility.

This amount has to be repaid within five years (extendable to seven years) and earns the market rate of interest (at least 7.75%). The figure is not final because four processes have yet to be authorised. In addition, Cajasur will receive the aid finally resulting from the competitive procedure. BIS Review 92/2010  5  Furthermore, the savings bank DGF, which is financed by contributions from savings banks, undertook to provide € billion to Caja Castilla-La Mancha. These amounts, while substantial, are small compared with those provided by the taxpayers of other countries. Therefore, it is fitting at this point to recall that Spain is now enjoying the benefit of the decision in 1999 to oblige banks to record a general provision: since January 2008 our banks have used some € billion of this provision to cushion the impact of the crisis on their income statements. As can be seen, this amount is more than the sum of the funds used or to be used by the FROB and the savings bank DGF in the operations described above. Thus the main decisions have already been taken on the required restructuring and downsizing of the savings bank sector. One task remains in connection with these credit institutions: a legal reform to enable them to issue instruments eligible as top-quality own funds and to provide formulas conducive to improved governance and professionalisation of savings bank management.
Remember that the portfolios selected for the review amount to 58% of the risk-weighted assets of the 128 institutions, i.e. some € trillion, which will involve reviewing in detail an average of 1,250 credit records per bank. In Spain, we calculate that the review will affect assets valued at € billion, and will require the analysis of more than 21,000 loan records. The second part of the assessment will consist of the stress test. The aim of this exercise is to analyse the ability of banks to maintain appropriate solvency levels in two different scenarios: a baseline or more likely scenario, and another alternative, highly adverse scenario, with less likelihood of occurrence. The stress test is being developed in collaboration with the European Banking Authority (EBA). The methodology of the exercise is currently at the review stage following the finalisation some days back of the public consultation process. The final version of the methodology and details of the macroeconomic scenarios are expected to be published towards the end of this month. The implementation and quality control stages of the stress test will commence from next month, meaning there will be some overlap with the asset review exercise. The outcome of the comprehensive assessment will be made known in late October, and will include both the results of the asset quality analysis and of the stress test.

Fernando Restoy: Challenges for the Spanish banking sector Closing address by Mr Fernando Restoy, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the XXI Meeting of the Financial Sector, organised by ABC, Deloitte and Sociedad de Tasación, Madrid, 1 April 2014. *  *  *  Good morning. Thank you, Paco, for your kind words. It’s a great pleasure for me to be with you this year for the closure of the 21st edition of the Financial Sector Meeting organised by ABC, Deloitte and Sociedad de Tasación, in which the Banco de España has traditionally taken part. The conference has had a very full day, in which the country’s main financial institutions have had their say. Allow me to bring some thoughts to the discussion on the main challenges for the banking sector ahead of the changes in the regulatory and supervisory framework and, most particularly, ahead of the banking union. 1. Introduction  Looking back, I believe such significant structural transformations as those currently sweeping the banking industry are almost unprecedented. At present, the banking sector must face a host of highly relevant changes on various fronts.
We revised 2023 and 2024 and ultimately to 2.3% [in 2025] which moved by 0.1 from the previous projections [of 2.2%]. I think on the basis of that you can easily conclude that we are not satisfied with the results of that inflation outlook – which is only one of the three components that we look at. That is the reason why we are making the monetary policy decision that we make today, and why we are thinking that, unless there was a material change to the baseline, we would again hike interest rates in July. I don't want to comment about the terminal rate. This is what markets are considering. 5/10  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  The terminal rate is something that we will know when we get there because it is not what is driving our analysis and our deliberations. What is driving it is the ultimate destination, which is the 2% inflation. That's what we want and there are lots of components that come in to help us arrive at the 2% target. We spent a lot of time on the labour market. We spent a lot of time because it is becoming one of the major components of the drivers of inflation. It was energy for a long time. To oversimplify: energy played a significant role, then food kicked in, and energy is now fading, has moved now in May and is in slightly negative territory.

Low policy rates boost credit growth and asset prices in conventional accounts of the monetary transmission mechanism, but other work has also highlighted the potential for low safe interest rates to  2  The potential role of high global savings and the consequent downward pressure on long-term interest rates is another factor often mentioned (Bernanke, 2005). 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  encourage a shift into riskier assets (for example Claudio Borio and Haibin Zhu, 2008)3. While the contribution of monetary policy to the crisis is controversial – I shall say a bit more on this later – I find plausible the idea that the long period of relative macroeconomic stability lulled investors into a false state of security. This leads to my second lesson from the crisis: the achievement of price stability does not guarantee the maintenance of financial stability and, without further measures, may possibly even compromise it. My next lesson follows on from this and relates to deficiencies in our analytical framework. The canonical macroeconomic model for thinking about the design of monetary policy is that of the New Keynesian synthesis (see Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali, and Mark Gertler, 1999; Michael Woodford, 2003). This focuses on the consequences of real and nominal rigidities in goods and labour markets, which give rise to a short-run trade-off between inflation and activity. The dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models in use in many central banks typically embody this synthesis, though usually with quite a few knobs and whistles added on.
This figure could be a lot higher if we take into account the mode of payment used by customers to pay agents, which based on anecdotal evidence, are primarily in cash and cheque. On this front, agents should work hand-inhand with insurance companies to encourage and incentivise their customers to adopt epayments. Besides enhancing the customer experience, higher adoption of e-payments could also boost the agents’ efficiency and productivity. In this regard, time and effort saved from less handling of cash and cheques can be directed to more productive tasks such as to increase sales, even by usage of WhatsApp. Second, increasing your digital accessibility to prospective clients. For a long as I am aware, the agency force has always dominated the insurance distribution 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  channel. In 2017, there was a total of over 56,000 agents constituting a market share of approximately 63%. Irrespective of whether in general or life insurance, the agency force has traditionally been the physical point of contact and engagements with clients. But, with the Internet and improved access amongst a growing number of the Malaysian population, online insurance solutions will not only become more viable, but also easier to adopt. In this, the agency force cannot afford to stagnate. Other industries with heavily digitalised services, like the air travel, hospitality and retail sectors, have elevated the digital literacy of the Malaysian population and improved their appetite for efficient delivery and transparent pricing of services.

This is a challenge to the industry to raise this till we meet again in two years. Given that the agency force are the insurers’ first contact point with customers, agents wield significant influence over how customers perceive and experience insurance. It is thus critical for agents to provide the highest levels of service via continued and consistent displays of attentiveness and value adding, to build trust with their clients. There are many possibilities to improve the current insurance value chain. One area that Bank Negara Malaysia strongly supports is the use of electronic payments. We have been undertaking a major initiative since 2013 to promote e-payments and reduce use of cash and cheques now. In increasing e-payments among financial institutions, government agencies, retail transactions, we have made some inroads. The insurance industry’s uptake however, still remains low. Perhaps agents can do more to help us in this. Promoting and using e-payments could remove the many pain points associated with the manual handling of cash and cheques that are experienced by the consumer, agent and even the insurer. Some of the data still indicate a high number of cheques. From January to July 2018, about 35,000 cheques were issued by the general insurance companies to their customers for the payment of claims and refunds. Likewise for collection purposes, about 1.1 million premium payment transactions were still being made using cash and cheque in the first 7 months of 2018.
As regards fiscal policy, the discussion in the G7 should not just be about increasing spending, it should also be about improving the quality of the budget. The ECB agrees with the idea that “countries that have fiscal space should use it”, but many countries do not have this fiscal space. Reducing unproductive expenditures and cutting taxes or increasing  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  investment in productive infrastructure, such as education and research, can lead to growth without increasing the deficit. What about foreign exchange policy? The UK pound and Japanese yen have been increasing and volatility is very high. What will the G7 do to reduce volatility? The G20 countries have committed not to use the exchange rate for competitive purposes, as confirmed in recent meetings in Shanghai and Washington. All of us should act in a way consistent with this commitment and which does not add to global uncertainty. Emerging markets are slowing down and advanced countries have very low growth rates. What should the G7 and advanced countries do for the world economy? In a low-growth environment globally, there might be a temptation for some countries to grow at the expense of other partner countries. So it is precisely the role of the G7 or the G20 to resist such temptation. There is no “magic bullet” for increasing growth. For the G7, it is crucial to send the message to support domestic demand and focus on those structural policies that will be most conducive to growth.

Benoît Cœuré: Interview in The Yomiuri Shimbun Interview with Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, in The Yomiuri Shimbun, conducted by Mr Tadashi Isozumi in Japan and published on 20 May 2016. *  *  *  You are attending the G7 finance ministers’ meeting in Sendai. What do you think the most important topic for discussion will be? The Group of Seven (G7) countries are faced with a common challenge: how can they escape from this low growth, low inflation environment? What is important is that they cooperate and act together. To address future challenges, there needs to be a combination of multiple policies. In order to prevent euro area inflation from being too low for too long, the ECB has brought short-term interest rates to levels close to zero or negative, and is providing forward guidance on the future monetary policy stance. We are also implementing quantitative monetary easing of € billion [about 10 trillion yen] per month at least until March 2017, primarily by purchasing government bonds but also, starting next month, by purchasing bonds issued by non-financial companies. These actions are mutually reinforcing and in particular negative rates are reinforcing the impact of QE. Negative rates are also hurting the financial industry… Negative interest rates impose direct costs on some industries: the banking industry, the pension funds industry and the insurance industry. But so far the overall impact on bank revenue has been positive, thanks to higher loan volumes and lower risk provisions.
They overdid it, defaults started to rise, losses were taken and they toughened their terms again. The speed and severity of that cycle can have implications for financial stability as well as the stability of the broader economy. It is for that reason that there is a wide acceptance that there may be a case for monetary policy to “lean into the wind” in a cyclical upswing. 11 That has been one factor in my support for the four interest rate rises of the last year. If there is evidence of a cyclical, unsustainable, element in the supply of credit and asset prices the next questions are: •  where are we in the cycle, and  10  M King “Speech to CBI Dinner, Wales”, 11 June 2007. 11  C Bean “Inflation Targeting: The UK Experience”, speech at the Annual Conference of the German Economic Association, 1 October 2003. 6  BIS Review 73/2007  •  is the present stance of monetary policy sufficient to bring it back to a sustainable trend or, given the lags in the impact of interest rate changes, is it set to exacerbate the downturn? Current conjuncture So where are we now? The consumer credit market in the UK and the sub prime and broader housing markets in the US have turned down and, while the sub prime saga is still not played out, it still seems unlikely that it will have severe knock on effects on the broader economy.

Anita Angelovska Bezhoska: Welcoming remarks - Vienna Initiative Full Forum Welcoming remarks by Ms Anita Angelovska Bezhoska, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia, for the Vienna Initiative Full Forum, Skopje, 22-24 March 2023. *** Your excellences ambassadors, minister of finance, dear governors, chair of the Vienna initiative, distinguished representatives of European and International institutions Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome you at the Annual Full Forum meeting of the Vienna Initiative. As Helen Keller said - "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." This saying lies in the essence of the Vienna Initiative – partnership among international institutions, public and private stakeholders whose common objective is safeguarding financial stability of CESEE region. Established at the height of the GFC to prevent nation-based uncoordinated policies that could led to systemic banking crisis, we have come a long way, expanding activities and fostering financial stability in the region. This initiative is particularly relevant for countries that still do not belong to the European Union family, do not have access to EU backstop facilities and as such are even more vulnerable to exogenous shocks. Collaboration and coordination is key in times of crisis. Unfortunately, in the last three years we are in the mode of "Perpetual crisis". Severe global shocks of unprecedented nature are hitting the world economy and unfolding into the "great return" of inflation and cost of living crisis.
Thus, i)  The maximum amount to be purchased in daily foreign exchange buying auctions has been set as USD 45 million for 2007, with USD 15 million for auction amount and USD 30 million for optional selling amount,  ii)  Then, the auction amount has been raised to USD 40 million as of 25 July 2007 with an assumption that the capital inflow to Turkey will follow a strong trend due to the end of the election process and positive expectations for macroeconomic policies,  iii)  However, the auction amount has been lowered to USD 15 million as of 15 August 2007 due to the fact that the unfavorable developments in housing and credit markets in developing countries increased the volatilities in the Turkish markets as well as in other developing markets in the said period. iv)  The measures taken by central banks in order to alleviate the problems in housing and credit markets have relatively reduced the volatilities in these markets and increased the global risk appetite. Therefore, the maximum amount to be purchased in auctions has been set as USD 90 million with USD 30 million for auction amount and USD 60 million for optional selling amount from 9 October 2007 onwards. As of 14 December 2007, the total amount of foreign exchange purchased via auctions in 2007 is USD 9.5 billion and there has not been any direct intervention in the foreign exchange market.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  Figure 8 Sweden’s net external position and accumulated current accounts Percentage of GDP  80  80 Accumulated current accounts Net external position  60  60 Nominal net external position  40  40  20  20  0  0  -20  -20  -40  -40  -60  -60 75  77  79  81  83  85  87  89  91  93  95  97  99  01  03  05  07  09  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  If it is the case that Sweden has no particularly large net claim internationally then this will have some significance for the prospects for the real exchange rate. In theory, countries with a strong external position should in the long term experience appreciating real exchange rates, and vice versa. There is also empirical support for the link between the net position and real exchange rates when studying different countries. 24 With a net claim close to zero one would not necessarily expect any strengthening of the real exchange rate despite a large current account surplus. The fact that Sweden’s external position appears to be close to zero suggests that there is no need for the real exchange rate for the krona to move in any particular direction for this reason. Other factors also affect the real exchange rate, for example relative GDP growth, relative inflation and the terms of trade.
2 A recovery has also started at an earlier stage in the cycle than in the early 1990s, when the economy “bumped along the bottom” for a number of quarters before growth became firmly established. It is particularly encouraging that manufacturing output has been growing particularly strongly, up by 5.3% on a year ago in the third quarter. This is the strongest year-on-year manufacturing growth we have seen since the end of 1994, sixteen years ago. The latest business surveys are generally positive about the continuation of the growth of manufacturing output. And the CBI’s latest quarterly Industrial Trends Survey, released last month, shows the strongest investment intentions in manufacturing since 1997 and the most significant employment growth since 1989. These are all encouraging signs for the rebalancing of the UK economy – towards manufacturing and away from services – which most economic analysts have suggested is likely to be needed over the course of this recovery. These rates of growth – across the UK economy as a whole and in manufacturing – would not be possible unless the demand climate had changed very significantly over the course of the last 12–18 months. The global economy has bounced back strongly, with the IMF now projecting world growth of 4.8% this year and 4.2% next year. Asia and a number of other emerging market economies are providing a powerful engine of growth to the world economy at present. Though the news is more mixed from the US and Europe, their economies are still on a recovery track.

The euro has experienced a similar episode recently. This situation seems to be about to correct itself, now that more and more signs point to a closing of the growth gap between the United States and continental Europe. Thus, the potential appreciation of the euro is more than ever a topical question. This potential clearly reflects the economic soundness, dynamism and strengths of the euro area, supported by the structural reforms under way. As these winning cards, if I may say so, are now materializing more and more clearly, I am confident that market participants will soon share our analysis. 5  BIS Review 52/2000