samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Like other central banks, we too are committed to establishing a standard for worldwide rules on foreign exchange market practices. Within the framework of the Swiss FX Market Roundtable, a broad spectrum of market participants has been working with the SNB to develop a global standard ‘FX Code of Conduct’. I would like to take this opportunity to thank these market participants for their contributions. Longer-term correlation between monetary policy and financial markets Ladies and gentlemen, I now come to the last part of my speech, where I would like to talk about the longer-term interactions between monetary policy and financial markets. Through their monetary policy measures, central banks influence financial market prices. To what extent this influence is stronger today than it used to be is the subject of a number of studies. Indeed, we observe that some traditional relationships and correlation patterns on the financial markets have changed in recent years. This is illustrated in chart 5. It shows the correlations between the prices of seven asset classes, including equities, government bonds, corporate bonds and commodities. The blue bars show the distribution during the period 2000 to 2007, before the financial crisis and during a period of conventional monetary policy, while the red bars depict the observed distribution since 2010. It is clear that the correlation between asset prices has significantly increased since 2010. There are various explanations for why financial market prices globally are moving more in unison.

It is not possible to determine precisely where this lower bound lies, but we are confident that we still have some room for manoeuvre to lower interest rates further, if necessary. Second, the transmission of negative interest to the financial system and the economy has some peculiarities. In our experience, the transmission to the money and capital markets of an interest rate change in negative territory operates in the same way as one in positive territory. 8  9  For instance, a study by the International Monetary Fund shows that the unconventional measures taken by the Federal Reserve at the height of the financial crisis played a decisive role in calming the markets. Cf. Roache, S. K. and M. V. Rousset (2013), Unconventional monetary policy and asset price risk, IMF Working Paper, WP/13/190, August 2013. For the lessons learnt from the financial crisis and proposals for future monetary policy frameworks, cf. Bindseil, U. (2016), Evaluating monetary policy operational frameworks, paper presented at the Economic Symposium of the Kansas City Fed, Jackson Hole, August 2016. Page 5/8  An example of this is the continued efficient operation of the repo market. By contrast, the transmission of negative interest in the banking system is varied. As interest rates on bank deposits largely remain at zero, lending rates, particularly mortgage rates, have also fallen less sharply than money and capital market rates. From the SNB’s perspective, this imperfect transmission to lending rates is not entirely unwelcome in the current economic environment.
However, it would take a drastic shift in regulatory philosophy and changes to the fundamental fabrics of existing supervisory regimes if we want to focus more on individuals rather than the firms. But to achieve to a large extent what Professor Goodhart proposes, I believe bank regulators could attempt to require banks to focus more on governance, culture and ethics. 17. If a bank is willing and able to own good corporate culture and governance with the appropriate incentive system to induce proper behaviour, then I, as the supervisor, would be very willing to take a step back and adopt a much less “intrusive” mode of supervision. My colleagues in HKMA can keep more of a distance from a bank if they have confidence that the bank and its staff would not behave improperly, not because of constant and intensive external policing but because it would be against their core values and culture to harm the interests of their customers or of the bank through their own misconduct. 18. Ladies and gentlemen, I truly mean what I say. This is why in the last few years the HKMA has been telling banks that they need to cultivate the right culture and values. Moreover, we have instituted a new programme to engage and equip the Independent Non-Executive Directors (INEDs) of banks so they can become more effective in providing the necessary checks and balance on the management.

Through these successive waves, the world financial system found itself with almost every link in the credit chain – in the chain of trust – having been weakened or broken. That is evident in surveys of the public’s trust in industry: banking and finance are firmly rooted to the foot of the league table of trust, in the UK and internationally (Chart 6). That loss of trust is mirrored in aggregate bank lending in the UK, in particular to companies, where annual growth has fallen from a peak of 23% in March 2008 to around zero now (Chart 7). And this has in turn been reflected in the largest and most synchronous global economic slowdown since the Great Depression. Confidence and credit So how is trust, and thereby credit, to be restored? To date, the answer has been to rely on the one sector whose credit has not been seriously questioned – governments and central banks. There has been large-scale provision of government and central bank credit over the past two years in an attempt to ease pressures and shore up breaks in the private sector credit chain. These interventions have been unprecedented in size during peacetime. The total potentially on the table is in excess of $ trillion.7 That is roughly $ for every man, woman and child on the planet. Half of the world’s 20 largest banks have needed direct government support. Central bank balance sheets in the major financial centres, including in the UK, have more than doubled in size.
At a global level, the buoyancy of EMEs has resulted in higher commodity prices, which coupled with some specific factors, such as weather problems impacting agricultural production and tensions in the Middle East and North Africa, have pushed food prices to record highs and oil prices to very high levels as well. This price shock, coupled with strong domestic activity, results in inflationary pressures that must be contained with tighter monetary policy. Contrary to the situation in advanced economies, international price (supply) shocks find fertile territory to propagate to wages or other prices when the economy is in a strong cyclical position. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  This uneven recovery of the world economy is resulting in an uneven monetary policy landscape (Figure 2), which strengthens currencies in EMEs and induces capital inflows to these countries. Free trade and export-led growth have been a successful growth strategy in developing countries, which see the strengthening of their currencies as a threat to this strategy. Consequently, many countries have been trying to fight the appreciation via capital controls and exchange rate intervention. China and the U.S. deserve special mention, as they are at the center of the tensions of the adjustment. China has been the growth engine of the world, and it would not be an exaggeration to call it the “grower of last resort” for the global economy. They have decided to appreciate gradually, much more slowly than most EMEs and commodity exporters.

This improvement is attributable to the zestful actions undertaken by most banks to address the nonperforming loans portfolio, by offering solutions both within the e.g. repayment, repossession, restructuring, debt forgiveness), and also outside it the e.g. sale of loan portfolios). The financial infrastructure of the banking sector was strengthened further in 2019. The Bank of Albania and the National Payment System Committee have implemented the national strategy for 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  enhancing the small value payment market and increasing the financial inclusion of the population. The first results are promising and further steps by the Bank of Albania and the banking sector will be taken aimed at achieving a quantitative objective, which is to see the number of bank account holders doubled by 2022. The financial inclusion of the population is one of the most important current priorities. In 2019, the Bank of Albania and the banking sector paid particular attention to financial inclusion and financial education. It is a proven fact now that the improvement in financial inclusion contributes to the improvement of the welfare of the population, in a harmonised way. In this regard, we have designed and implemented, among others, a series of educational projects tailored to various segments of the population. Financial education, targeted publications with information on bank products and services, as well as developments in the payment infrastructure and payment services are concrete steps for providing more opportunities for access to finance by all segments of the population.
Along the same lines, and perhaps as a result of the deficient information base, very limited research and analytical efforts have been pooled in the central banking community with a view to supporting policy suggestions in the prudential and regulatory area. BIS Review 115/2009  9  4. Turning the clock back  But let me turn the question around and ask: what if the Risk Board had existed in 2006-07? Would this have prevented the financial crisis? This is a difficult question because the modus operandi of the ESRB is still to be defined. It is also difficult to know whether the agreed framework and operational processes will prove to be effective. However, if the ESRB is given the appropriate information base, if it combines central banking and supervisory expertise and is supported by a sound analytical framework and can produce solid risk assessments and policy recommendations, the answer should be positive. Policy-makers, regulators, academics and market participants have learnt an enormous amount from the crisis. As the turmoil spread, they learnt about the functioning of the financial system and the links between the financial system and the real sector. In particular, the crisis highlighted the importance of the shadow banking system in fuelling credit into the economy, of indirect links between the banking and insurance sectors, as well as of fragilities in the securitisation market, just to name a few. However, it seems appropriate to ask: would a pre-crisis ESRB have closely monitored the Asset Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP) markets?

Based on that, the following crimes are classified as medium threats to money laundering situation in Malaysia: •  Organised Crimes  •  Human Trafficking & Migrant Smuggling  •  Forgery  •  Theft and Robbery; and  •  Counterfeiting of Currency  Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, although currently assessed as medium threat is also seen as an emerging threat for Malaysia as this criminal activities is believed to generate substantial proceeds and may be further pursued if not enough enforcement actions are taken by the law enforcement agencies. If left unchecked, this type of crime may have the potential to pose high risk threats to the country from money laundering perspective. The following crimes are classified as low threats from money laundering activities: •  6  Sexual Exploitation  BIS central bankers’ speeches  •  Arms Trafficking  •  Counterfeiting and piracy of products  •  Insider Trading and Market Manipulation  •  Murder  •  Environmental Crimes  •  Extortion  •  Kidnapping  •  Sea Piracy  Terrorism Financing threat is classified as medium risk taking into consideration the following factors: •  Insignificant number of terrorism and terrorism financing incidents in Malaysia  •  Primary groups (such as Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) have been dismantled)  •  Evidences so far indicate self-financing by individual terrorist.
The brief examines the relationship between trend inflation and commodity price increases and finds that evidence from recent decades supports the notion that commodity price changes do not affect the long-run inflation rate. Evidence from earlier decades suggests that effects on inflation expectations and wages played a key role in whether commodity price movements altered trend inflation. 2  Readers may be interested in “Oil and the Macroeconomy in a Changing World,” the proceedings of a 2010 symposium held at the Boston Fed to explore the interactions between energy prices, growth, and inflation – the determinants of oil prices and about the effect that oil prices have on the world economy. The proceedings are available at http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/conf/oil2010/index.htm  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The impact of recent supply shocks Now that you know my basic take on this key – and current – economic debate, allow me to flesh out my perspective with the supporting data and analysis. The full impact of the recent shocks to supply that I mentioned at the outset will likely emerge over time. But clearly there have been significant increases in a variety of food and energy prices. As Figure 1 illustrates, the recent turmoil in the Middle East has contributed to a significant increase in oil prices, which have risen to over $ a barrel.

The question that arises today is: which systems could become more efficient or offer greater possibilities as a result of technical decentralisation? In the field of regulation and supervision conducted by the ACPR, we applied the same principles. Take the case of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How do we concretely define the conditions for a controlled development of artificial intelligence and define the principles of its control? It is in this spirit that we designed our IA workshops: the ACPR FinTech experts and the Banque de France data scientists met established players to understand their perception of these technologies and assess their level of maturity. In the areas of AML-CFT, internal models and consumer protection, the lessons learned from these meetings and tests under production conditions will provide us with crucial information for building a future framework conducive to controlling the development of Artificial Intelligence. (iii) Aware of the importance of the issues and clairvoyant as to their complexity, ready to change our regulation and the exercise of our missions, we must also be bold, that is to say, innovative. To conclude this speech, I would like to stress two important elements. First, European financial sovereignty does not depend solely on the authorities of its Member States or on the regulations drawn up by the European Commission; it depends first and foremost on the vitality of the European ecosystem and on the innovation effort of all players, be they established or new.
Sam Woods: Embarking on a new voyage? Solvency II in context Text of The Insurance Institute of London Lecture by Mr Sam Woods, Executive Director of Insurance Supervision of the Bank of England, at Lloyd’s of London, London, 27 January 2016. *  *  *  I am grateful to Kayleigh Guinan and Mark Cornelius for their assistance in preparing this speech. I am also grateful to Norma Cohen (Bank of England), Dr Adrian Leonard (Cambridge), Professor Philip Rawlings (Queen Mary) and Robert Thoyts (FCA) for their views and input. Good afternoon. The good ship Solvency II is now afloat. It has taken a long time to make it seaworthy. Some might question whether we need this newly improved vessel. Indeed, some might challenge whether we should have a ship at all. But that is largely academic, given we are now under way and in light of the gargantuan efforts insurance firms and regulators have put into getting us to this point. In my speech today, I would like to look at this development in the wider context of insurance history. First, I would like to offer a brief view on why, looked at through the lens of today, we regulate insurance companies at all. Second, we will take a very whirlwind tour of 5,000 years of insurance activity, for the single purpose of pointing out that for at least four-and-a-half of those five millennia there was very little regulation of insurance, if any.

Transforming our payments infrastructure  Speech given by Victoria Cleland Executive Director, Banking, Payments and Financial Resilience Payments International, London 27 November 2018  I would like to thank Sam Leighton, Richard Lewis, and Cameron Penny for their contributions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  Transforming our payments infrastructure Payments are an essential part of our lives, and of the UK economy. Last year UK payment systems processed more than 26 billion transactions worth over £ trillion, covering everything from small scale card payments and cash withdrawals to major corporate transactions. The UK payments landscape has undergone considerable change in recent years. Increased take-up of new types of payment technology in retail and wholesale markets has been facilitated by factors including increased ease of use, the growth in e-commerce, and increased confidence in their reliability and security. Looking to the future, we expect this transformation to continue, driven by incumbents but also the growth of new Fintech firms who will continue to find innovative ways of meeting demand for faster, simpler, cheaper and more flexible payments. This wave of innovation could deliver positive outcomes ranging from better choice for consumers, to improved access to finance for businesses, to lower transaction costs, enhanced resilience and greater capital efficiency.
At the current rate of migration, we expect to see that rate to come down much further before the end of June. Closing remarks Driving and sustaining an inclusive transformation of Malaysia’s payment ecosystem is a collective effort. Bank Negara Malaysia will continue to foster a conducive payment ecosystem, with the National Payments Advisory Council (NPAC) playing a more active role in shaping priorities to enhance and future-proof the country’s payment systems. PayNet will serve as the key vehicle for collaboration at the infrastructure level, encouraging more open competition and greater innovation in payment solutions by both banks and non-banks in serving the public and economy. The remaining piece is the continuous education of businesses and consumers to encourage the desired change in payment behaviour that will deliver important efficiency and productivity gains for our economy. 4/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  Let me conclude by congratulating MyClear and the winners of today’s awards ceremony. I hope that today’s event will inspire greater achievements in accelerating Malaysia’s migration to epayments. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches

Outstanding bank lending to corporates is rising at a faster pace in France than anywhere else in Europe: +4.5% year-on-year at end-November 2015, compared with +2.1% in the United Kingdom, +1% in Germany and an average of +0.9 % for the euro area as a whole. In fact, based on the responses given by business leaders to our surveys, it seems that applications for investment loans are generally accepted fairly readily, and the same seems to apply, more or less, to cash loans. Although difficult to measure, firms’ willingness to apply for loans appears to be strong. Surveys conducted by the ECB show similar results, and rank France on a par with Germany in terms of access to credit and willingness to apply for loans, well ahead of the other major countries in the euro area. Interest rates on loans are also lower in France than anywhere else in the euro area – by around 1 percentage point in the case of individual loans of up to EUR 250,000. With regard to today’s topic, however, there are a number of important distinctions that need to be made. Access to credit is markedly more difficult for VSEs than for other SMEs: –  fewer than 60% of applications for cash loans were accepted (i.e. granting of 75% or more of the requested amount) in the third quarter of 2015, compared with 74% for SMEs.
A strong increase in the population has expanded the growth capacity of the Norwegian economy without a comparable increase in wages. In particular, the supply of foreign labour has increased sharply after EU enlargement in 2004. Over the past two years, these labour inflows have accounted for over 30 per cent of growth in the labour force in Norway. At the same time, this has enabled Norwegian companies to be bolder in accepting new assignments and investing knowing that they can procure labour throughout Europe. In addition to increased labour inflows from Poland, Lithuania and other central European countries, we have long benefited from inflows of labour from Sweden. Many workers are on temporary assignment and their consumption is primarily concentrated in their home country. The Norwegian economy has seen a net capacity increase. Third, the Norwegian business sector has been quick to integrate new technology. This applies both to companies competing on international markets and those supplying goods and services to the domestic market. In comparison with other countries, it is particularly productivity gains in banks and other service sectors that stand out. Examples are automated processes and swifter payments in the financial industry and improved inventory and management systems in commerce and transport. This results in lower production costs.

Academic research also has a large part to play in this process, in both identifying the issues and proposing or evaluating policy responses. A lot of discussion is taking place around disentangling different forms of complexity in the market place. For example, regulators are promoting more transparency around funding and legal entity structure within complex financial institutions. And there is also a growing body of work that is exploring clearing houses and exchanges as important structural vehicles to mitigate the increased inter-connectedness driven by the growth of derivatives1. The approach taken in this paper is to look at some of the details of how risk-taking is executed and the underlying market structures. These micro-foundations can have a profound impact on systemic stability beyond the normal consideration of formal regulations. In particular, we focus on one aspect of market structure: contracts where, because of a failure to take into account how the financial system as a whole operates, the true value of the contract is different from what it was intended to be – by at least one of the counterparties who struck the contract. This can arise either because in states of the world in which a particular contract is designed to have value there is high correlation with other events or where, in that state of the world, full adherence to the legal structure would cause large unintended consequences in terms of signalling or reputational damage.