samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Apart from upgrading professional competency, consideration will also be given to the technical competency of company directors and other staff involved in the insurance business. We will work with industry to formulate an insurance manpower development strategy. We envisage industry players, training providers and tertiary institutions co-operating to develop programmes that will enhance professionalism in the insurance industry. Conclusion MAS will continue to work together with the insurance industry to achieve international best practices and standards. Over the past two years, MAS has worked hard to build a closer partnership with the financial sector. We will continue to promote an open environment and consult actively with the private sector for its views. The relationship between the regulator and the regulated should be arms length but not adversarial. The regulator has to be firm, but also friendly. Market practitioners can help regulators generate ideas, keep abreast of market developments, anticipate global trends and review  4  BIS Review 44/2002  our financial sector strategies. Candid, thoughtful feedback, including dissenting views, go a long way to ensure that policies are pragmatic and remain relevant. We hope that such a regulatory environment will help to develop well-managed insurers in Singapore, who will take up new challenges, and play a more active and productive role in upgrading our insurance industry, and thus our financial sector as a whole. I wish you fruitful deliberations. BIS Review 44/2002  5

Along with reflecting the risks, the agreement explicitly acknowledges how important the financial system should be for efficiently channelling the resources needed to transform our economy towards a sustainable model. These two factors, namely the risks and the opportunities and incentives associated with the change in economic model to combat climate change, have grown in significance on international financial agencies’ agendas. Allow me to mention, non-exhaustively, some of these initiatives: - the work on sustainable finance during the last three mandates of the G20, - the establishment of responsible investment principles by the United Nations, - the creation of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, - the establishment of the OECD green finance and investment centre, - the Sustainable Banking Network established by the World Bank, - within the EU, the European Commission’s action plan on sustainable finance - in the central banking and banking supervision environment, the work by the Network for Greening the Financial Sector (NGFS), of which the Banco de España is a member. In sum, the Paris agreement message to involve the financial sector has hit home and is prompting numerous courses of action. 3/5  You will be discussing many of these initiatives at length in the ensuing roundtable. But in the rest of my speech I wish to briefly set out the role the Banco de España, as a central bank and as a supervisor, can perform regarding this collective challenge.
Source: Statistics Sweden  14  BIS Review 100/2008  The policy rate in Sweden Per cent 5  5  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  Note. Broken line represents the Riksbank’s forecast in the M PR 2008:2. Source: The Riksbank  GDP growth in Sweden Quarterly change in per cent, seasonally-adjusted data 2,0  2,0  1,5  1,5  1,0  1,0  0,5  0,5  0,0  0,0  -0,5  -0,5 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  BIS Review 100/2008  15  CPI and CPIF Annual percentage change 5  5 CPI 4  4  CPIF  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1 -2  -2 95  96  97  98  99  00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  Note. The CPIF is the CPI with a fixed interest rate. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Summary The picture presented in July remains largely unchanged, with lower growth and high inflation.

This is the highest figure measured since the mid-1990s. Inflation is now far above the inflation target of 2 per cent. The upswing in inflation over the past year can largely be explained by rises in energy and food prices, but higher wage increases and weaker productivity growth also contribute to higher inflationary pressures. Higher interest rates also contribute in the short term to the high inflation through rising housing costs. The forecast in the Monetary Policy Report was for inflation to remain high over the coming year and then to fall towards 2 per cent at the end of the forecast period. Continued high inflation expectations For a long time inflation expectations have been firmly anchored around the inflation target of 2 per cent. There have thus been no special reasons for us at the Riksbank to highlight them in our reports and speeches. However, since the beginning of 2006 inflation expectations have gradually risen. According to the Prospera survey in June, inflation expectations for one year ahead were 3.2 per cent and expectations for five years ahead were 2.6 per cent. The expectations for one year ahead are largely in line with our own forecast, but the fact that expectations for five years ahead are way above the inflation target is more worrying. The rising inflation in Sweden and abroad would not be a problem if it was just a question of a temporary rise and if inflation expectations remained at a low and stable level.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  7.0  Measures to reduce interest rates  Although interest rates have trended downwards in the recent past with commercial banks average lending rate at 26.2% in March 2011 from 54.5% in 2001, the reduction is not in tandem with the fall in inflation and yield rates on government securities. The Government and the Bank of Zambia continue to take measures to provide macroeconomic stability necessary for the reduction of interest rates in Zambia. Some of the measures undertaken so far include the following: (i)  Inflation: the other challenge with regard to lowering lending rates is to attain and sustain low (preferably single digit) annual inflation. An upward trend in inflation is undesirable, as it raises inflationary expectations causing banks to increase their lending rates. Prior to 2006 inflation in Zambia was persistently high and above single digit. However, from 2006 inflation has been contained in single digit except from the 2008 when the financial crisis resulted in the increase of inflation to 16.6%. Inflation was recorded at 7.9% in December 2010 from 30.1% in January 2001. This has resulted in a fall in interest rates with banks Average Lending Rate coming down to 26.2% in March 2011 from 54.5% in December 2001. (ii)  Domestic financing: to contribute to efforts aimed at lowering lending interest rates, the Government has adopted prudent fiscal policies with domestic borrowing significantly reducing over the recent years.

The reduction of borrowing by the Government reduces the crowding out effect and more resources are available to lend to the private sector. This has also contributed to the lowering of yield rates on Government securities which is the opportunity cost for loanable funds. The composite yield rate for Treasury bills was 8.2% at end-December 2010, down from 49.1% recorded at the end of 2001. The fall in yield rates on government securities reflected reduced inflationary expectations and improved fiscal management. (iii)  Reduction of Statutory Reserve Ratios: banks argue that statutory reserve ratio is a critical in determining interest rates as a high ratio tend to raise the operating cost for banks by locking up loanable funds in a non-interest earning asset. The opportunity cost of these funds is therefore included in the cost of conducting banking business. On 1st October 2007, Bank of Zambia reduced the statutory reserve ratios on both Kwacha and foreign currency deposits from 14.0% to 8.0%. This followed the earlier reduction in October 2003 from 17.5%. The reduction in statutory reserve ratios entails a release of more liquidity into the financial system which is expected to provide more loanable funds to banks and contribute to lowering interest rates. (iv)  Establishment of Credit Reference Bureau: the first and only credit reference bureau (CRB) in Zambia, Credit Reference Bureau Africa Limited (CRBAL) was licensed in 2006 and commenced operations in 2008. The CRB is expected to enhance positive credit behaviour by providing lenders with information on borrowers’ payment histories.
Financial transactions, which as a rule involve substantial amounts and are time-critical, are of great significance for the real economy. This is why it is so important to have the settlement of large-value payments as a reliable foundation. To avoid risks with regard to payments in this systemically important segment, there needs to be a risk-free payment instrument. Today, time-critical, large-value payments in a currency area are therefore usually settled in central bank money and via central banks’ payment systems, referred to as real-time gross settlement systems or RTGS for short. Switzerland’s RTGS system is Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC). An RTGS system ensures that payments are made when – and only when – there is sufficient money on the account of the paying bank. If there are adequate funds to cover the payments, they are settled irrevocably and in real time. This assures the safety of the settlement process. Using central bank money also eliminates the risk of default by the settlement institution. Central banks can provide additional liquidity if required at any time, and also serve as the lender of last resort. In this way, they ensure that there is a reliable foundation for the FMI. This has proved effective to date, and also stood up well during the financial crisis. Could DLT also be used in RTGS systems in the future, i.e. as part of the reliable foundation? We see a number of questions that are still to be resolved here.

Food price inflation edged higher to 14.1 per cent, as the past surge in the cost of energy and of other inputs for food production is still feeding through to consumer prices. Price pressures remain strong, partly because high energy costs are spreading throughout the economy. Inflation excluding energy and food remained at 5.2 per cent in January, with inflation for non-energy industrial goods rising to 6.9 per cent and  2/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  services inflation declining to 4.2 per cent. Other indicators of underlying inflation are also still high. Government measures to compensate households for high energy prices will dampen inflation in 2023 but are expected to raise inflation once they expire. At the same time, the scale of some of these measures depends on the evolution of energy prices and their expected contribution to inflation is particularly uncertain. Although supply bottlenecks are gradually easing, their delayed effects are still pushing up goods price inflation. The same holds true for the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions: while weakening, the effect of pent-up demand is still driving up prices, especially in the services sector. Wages are growing faster, supported by robust labour markets, with some catch-up to high inflation becoming the main theme in wage negotiations. At the same time, recent data on wage dynamics have been in line with the December Eurosystem staff projections. Most measures of longer-term inflation expectations currently stand at around two per cent, but these warrant continued monitoring.
Their latest metamorphosis needs to ensure they reach the parts of society they previously have not reached, using media they have not previously used, conversing as much as convincing, listening as often as talking. It is an irony, and not one lost on me, that this speech is a classic example of one-way central bank communications. Worse still, it comes in at around 11,500 words, contains 2,000 adverbs and adjectives and has a reading grade score of around 11. Perhaps central bankers, like this one, have always been better at preaching than practicing. If so, that needs to change. And when better to change than now. This would be a brave new world for central banks. They do not need to be as magical as Mandelbrot’s shaman, as good a storyteller as Charles Dickens, as great a showman as Elvis. But to make a success of this new world, central banks will need to be brave. 82  Roy et al (2012).

the harmonisation of the legal, regulatory, taxation and accounting frameworks. A first challenge is the need for global oversight. This need arises from several factors. In terms of the so-called horizontal approach, trading, clearing and settlement of securities operations already occur in different institutions located in several different jurisdictions; virt-x and SIS-clear are just two examples. For the time being, cross-border infrastructures deploy their activities in complement to domestic systems, but it is very likely that they will play a significantly more powerful role in the future. Oversight authorities tend to prefer a pragmatic approach, where one regulatory authority takes on the role of a lead overseer and consults with other relevant authorities. Such a model has already been put in place among central bankers in the context of the Continuous Linked Settlement system. A second challenge that oversight authorities face lies in the risk dimension of cross-border securities operations. Indeed, whereas the nature of the risks remains basically the same, both the probability of occurrence of an adverse event and the risk exposures themselves have clearly increased. The added dimension of cross-border activities lies in spill-over effects due to direct links between systems. Credit, liquidity and operational risk events occurring in one jurisdiction may indeed trigger a systemic crisis by spilling over to foreign financial markets. These kinds of linkages among different systems explain why oversight authorities have recently focussed not only on payment systems, but also on securities clearing and settlement systems.
John C Williams: A time of uncertainty Remarks by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies 2022 Spring Symposium, Princeton, New Jersey, 2 April 2022. ***  As prepared for delivery Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so pleased to be here at Princeton University. It's great to be able to attend an event like this in person, and to see so many of my esteemed colleagues here today. Whenever I visit a college campus, I am reminded that some of the concepts I learned as a student can become more meaningful over time, often in surprising ways. I've thought of that as I've reflected on the significant challenges we face today-the ongoing pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition to staggering human suffering, these events are imposing considerable economic and financial hardships around the world. If we think back on what many of us learned in statistics about factor analysis, the pandemic and the Russian invasion can be seen as factors that have common effects across countries. But there are also idiosyncratic components that have distinct effects for the U.S. economy. I'll talk more about that today, as well as give you my views on inflation and the economic outlook. But I want to say at the outset that we at the Federal Reserve are committed to fulfilling our dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.

The decline of labour market institutions includes lower trade union membership, which reduces the relative bargaining power of labour, and more flexible labour market institutions that can pose challenges See, for example, the effects of the monetary policy pursued by the Federal Reserve in connection with the financial crises in Bivens (2015), the effects of monetary policy in the USA since 1980 in Coiboin (2016), the effects in advanced economies since 1990 in panel data-analyses in Furceri et al. (2016) and effects of the monetary policy conducted by the ECB in connection with and after the financial crises, with a focus on Germany in Bundesbank (2016). 4 One example is that a decline in trade union membership (union rate) reduces the relative bargaining power of labour, exacerbating wage inequality (Frederiksen and Poulsen 2010). Another is that more flexible labour market institutions (although positive for reallocating resources to more productive firms and enabling firm restructuring) can pose challenges for workers, especially those with low skills, and hence play an important role in explaining inequality developments (Alvadero et al 2013). 3  3 [5]  for workers with low skills. Technological progress combined with globalization seems to have played at least some role in increasing inequality within countries. • The discussion of the effects of globalization is interesting. Globalization has for long been a natural part of the Nordic economies. Our dependency on foreign trade is much higher than the global average.
30.10.2018  Welcome address Banco de España-SUERF Conference “Financial Disintermediation and the Future of the Banking Sector” Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Good morning. I would like to welcome you to the conference “Financial disintermediation and the future of the banking sector”, hosted by the Banco de España and co-organised with SUERF. Let me start by thanking our colleagues from SUERF for their participation and involvement in the conference. SUERF is a unique institution that has been very successful in creating an active network of academics, financial practitioners and policymakers for the analysis and discussion of monetary and financial issues. Its outreach is achieved through the organization of international events, such as today´s conference, publications and a very active sponsoring of research. It is well known that capital markets in Europe are less developed than in the United States. This is related to the more significant role played by banks in Europe for the provision of funding to firms than their US peers. To illustrate this, let me give you some figures. In 2017, the ratio of financing through fixed-income securities to total debt financing was 12% in the euro area versus 43% in the United States. Also, the ratio of equity market capitalisation over the domestic credit provided by banks to the private sector was almost four times larger in the United States than in the euro area at the end of 2016 according to the latest data provided by World Bank DataBank.

Before I conclude, let me briefly turn to the issue of accountability, which – as I said in my introduction – is essential to secure and reaffirm trust in the central bank. For the ECB, accountability to the people of Europe is not only a matter of good accountability practices. It is important for the central bank of a currency union to reach out to the whole euro area, to people in all parts of Europe and to spread trust in our currency, our institution and our policies. As I mentioned, the ECB is accountable to the people of the European Union and – as that Union is a representative democracy – to the European Parliament, which is the only European institution elected by popular vote. Our President regularly visits Parliament to report on and explain the ECB’s policies. The Governors of the national central banks in the Eurosystem have similar hearings before their national parliaments. In addition, we have a continuous dialogue with all relevant institutions involved in the European political process, such as the European Commission, and we have regular exchanges with the finance ministries of the euro area Member States. We also regularly report on and publish our monetary policy decisions. This panel today is one such occasion. Especially in times of crisis, when policies become less conventional and more complex, it is all the more important to carefully explain our decisions.
A common use case for crypto tokens is payment. But does that make them Money? Money – as we learnt in Economics 101 – serves three functions: as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. No crypto token currently meets these three functions in sufficient measure to qualify as Money. My colleagues on the Financial Stability Board – Agustin Carstens and Mark Carney – have spoken at length on this subject recently, with erudition and eloquence. Let me briefly echo some of the key points. With the possible exception of the dark web, crypto tokens are not widely accepted as a medium of exchange in any market, let alone across any variety of transactions Payment transactions in crypto tokens are often slower and more expensive than conventional electronic transfers of funds. Crypto tokens cannot be a store of value if their prices fluctuate so much. Since the beginning of last year, the daily value of Bitcoin against the US Dollar has fluctuated about 20 times more than the Singapore Dollar did against the US Dollar. People may buy some crypto tokens to speculate on their values. But with such volatility, I doubt they will put their retirement savings into them. Crypto tokens also fail as a unit of account. How many entities do we know of, which maintain 1/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  their financial statements in crypto tokens? So, does it mean that crypto tokens can never become Money? With technology, we can never say never.

Given the gaps in traditional information sources, MAS is exploring some unconventional ways in which to gather data about the scale and scope of crypto token related activities. One, the crypto token blockchains themselves can provide a wealth of information – including time stamps, recipient and sender addresses. Two, the Application Programming Interfaces or APIs provided by crypto-exchanges present real-time insights on current flows in the crypto market, including information on the fiat currencies that are being exchanged for crypto tokens. Money laundering A clear and present danger posed by some crypto token activity is money laundering and terrorism financing. Intermediaries dealing in crypto tokens are already required to report any suspicious transactions to the Commercial Affairs Department. In addition, the proposed Payment Services Bill will require intermediaries that buy, sell or exchange virtual currencies to specifically address money laundering and terrorism financing risks. Intermediaries will be required to carry out customer due diligence and put in place controls and processes that are commensurate with their risks. Investor protection Investor protection is another immediate concern arising from the crypto mania. Where the crypto tokens represent ownership or a security interest over an issuer’s assets or any property, or a debt owed by the issuer, they may be regarded as securities under the Securities and Futures Act.