samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The extension of the list of eligible assets the Riksbank accepts as collateral has now been made permanent, which should mean that liquidity in the Swedish banking system is good. For a Swedish bank to choose to bear the cost of placing large surpluses in its deposit account at the Riksbank would assume that lending money on the interbank market was assessed to be a poorer alternative. One reason for this could be a fear that the bank wanting to borrow would not be able to repay in time, or at all. Another reason could be that the bank with a surplus was unwilling, or unable for some reason, to provide loans requiring capital cover in accordance with capital adequacy rules and therefore chose to deposit the money at no risk in the Riksbank. Normally, however, there would be very little risk of this happening - firstly, Swedish banks have good solidity and secondly they are so few in number that they have a good knowledge of one another. BIS Review 80/2001  3  The Riksbank also has the opportunity - in situations where the financial system faces a risk of serious disruption - to provide loans at special terms to a bank that for some reason experiences such unexpectedly large deficits in its payments during the course of a day that the bank is unable to offer sufficient already approved collateral to borrow from the Riksbank at normal terms. However, the condition is that the bank is considered by the Riksbank to be sound.

The Labuan IBFC's competitiveness will be further enhanced through a revision of the pricing structure pertaining to incorporation and maintenance fee charges. There will be an annual reviews and prices will be revised in response to competitive market developments. The Labuan IBFC will also leverage on the national strategy of the Malaysian Islamic Financial Centre by promoting Syariah-compliant trusts and foundation. These products will complement Islamic financial products and services already available in Kuala Lumpur. Efforts will also be taken to further develop Labuan's captive insurance business which has enjoyed commendable growth over the years. Conclusion Ladies and Gentlemen, The establishment of Labuan as an international offshore financial centre in 1990 was indeed a bold step in its time. We are now seeing the payoffs from this initiative. With the transformation of Labuan as an International Business and Financial Centre, our ambition will be taken further. The new name signals that Labuan is ready to take on the much broader and larger role. The new name also represents a commitment. A commitment for the future. To demonstrate this commitment, the Government and the regulators have put in place the supportive and enabling environment to promote a more connected and more cost effective environment. Continued initiatives will also be taken to remove any impediments and obstacles to a more efficient delivery system and to advance forward the Labuan IBFC. 2  BIS Review 10/2008  The responsibility for ensuring the ambitions of the Labuan IBFC to be realised, is however, a shared responsibility.
The use of such tools may be helpful in these economies, but it also poses a potential risk to the rest of the world. For example, it could push even more capital flows in the direction of emerging economies like Malaysia. The crisis has also stretched the fiscal position of governments, both in the advanced and emerging economies. In some cases, such deterioration was related to dealing with the effects of the crisis (e.g., from bank rescues) and the low GDP growth post-crisis, in others it reflects the outcome of years of unwise fiscal spending. Whatever the reasons, constrained fiscal positions mean a reduced capacity to support economic activity and a reduced ability to deal with future crisis and shocks. It also means that monetary policy may be called on to do more than it can realistically deliver – a phenomenon we are already witnessing in the advanced economies. A related policy issue has to do with structural reforms. This is a topic that has been much discussed in the post-crisis years. The trans-Atlantic crisis was a blow-up of large imbalances and distortions – both real and financial – built over many  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  years. It reflects policymakers delaying or ignoring needed reforms. The experience has once again provided the lesson that the longer such imbalances are ignored and allowed to pile up, the bigger the mess when the whole pile finally comes crashing down. Structural reforms are certainly needed in many of the crisis affected advanced economies.

Finally I discuss the impact of financial developments on the growth of money and credit and the significance of that for the broader economy. London’s impact on the wider economy In principle, when one sector of an economy enjoys rapid growth, we would expect to see three broad developments: •  rewards earned by factors which are specific to the booming industry rise;  •  unless there are sufficient unemployed resources available, productive resources shift into the booming industry; and  •  employment in other tradable goods industries falls. 1  Gieve, J “The City’s Growth: The Crest of a Wave or Swimming with the Stream”, to the London Society of Accountants, 26 March 2007. 2  I use “the City” here loosely to cover not just the Square Mile but the whole of London’s wholesale financial sector including in Canary wharf and the West End. A fuller exposition would also give more attention to successful regional centres including Edinburgh. BIS Review 73/2007  1  The results were illustrated by the Dutch experience with gas in the 1960s and by the UK experience with North Sea oil in the early 1980s. 3 In both cases, part of the mechanism was a rise in the real exchange rate and consequent pressure on other sectors. Is that happening now in the UK? It is much harder to identify the impact of the City than the impact of the discovery of gold or oil.
Looking ahead, how well these new pieces of legislation are able to mitigate the shortcomings in Spanish business dynamics will need to be assessed. (v) The challenge of fully capitalising on the roll-out of NGEU One of the main challenges that we face in the coming years is how to fully harness the possibilities offered by NGEU to drive a profound structural transformation of our economy. The short-term economic impact of the take-up of these funds in 2021 was smaller than that included in our macroeconomic projections. Nonetheless, a significant part of the expected economic growth for 2022 and for the next few years crucially hinges on the potential multiplier effect on activity of the use of the NGEU funds. In this respect, the rigorous selection of the investment projects to be funded under NGEU is one of the key drivers for maximising this impact and, therefore, the success of this mechanism in Spain. The available evidence suggests that the most successful public investment policies are generally those that supplement private investment (in the form of employee training or capital modernisation). Further, the efficacy of the projects should be assessed on an ongoing basis. Moreover, a recent paper by the Banco de España suggests preference should be given, among solvent, equally productive projects, to those of businesses that find it hardest to access external finance, since this would generate a larger multiplier effect.

8  For its part, year-on-year growth in the prices of services and non-energy processed goods, which include processed food, stood at 4.3% in May. 3  of employment.9 Among the factors behind this worse relative performance of the Spanish economy is its specialisation in tourism.10 This sector has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic and, moreover, the recovery in inbound tourism has been slower in Spain. Indeed, the gap with the euro area has tended to narrow in the most recent period, given the improvement in activity in hospitality and leisure. However, there was still a significant gap in trade, transportation and hospitality; construction; and professional and administrative activities; as well as in industry, in part due to the importance of the automotive industry. Conversely, in the sectors that have led the recovery, such as financial activities and public administration, GVA has outstripped its pre-pandemic level in Spain more than in the euro area. From the standpoint of demand components, the difference visà-vis the rest of the euro area reflects the lower buoyancy of services exports,11 residential investment12 and private consumption.13 The role of economic policy in the pandemic crisis Economic policies worldwide have played a key role to mitigate the impact of the health crisis on the income and financial position of households, firms and financial institutions. The monetary, fiscal and prudential authorities have also taken complementary measures, adapting them flexibly to the health situation and the economic effects of the pandemic.
Chart 14. Revisions to Oil and Import Price Assumptions Oil Prices (USD/bbl)  Import Prices (2003=100)  Source: Bloomberg, CBRT. Source: TurkStat, CBRT. Particularly due to supply-side developments, oil and other commodity prices remained considerably above our assumptions presented in the January Inflation Report (Chart 14). Hence, we revised our assumptions for oil and other commodity prices upwards (Table 2). As illustrated on the slide, these changes in assumptions led to an upward revision of about 50 basis points for the end-2011 inflation forecast and a slightly upward revision for the 2012 inflation forecast. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  Table 2. Revisions to 2011 Assumptions  Oil (Annual Average, USD)  Prices  Import (Annual Percent Change)  Prices  Food Price (Year-end Percent Change)  Inflation  January 2011  April 2011  95  115  10.9  16.2  7.5  7.5  Another factor affecting 2011 inflation forecasts has been the tariff hike on fabrics and apparels. Although major uncertainties exist about how this development will be reflected on prices, we assumed that this would add to year-end inflation by about 50 basis points while revising our forecasts. Despite the recent benign course of food prices, we preserved our assumption regarding food inflation for end-2011 at 7.5 percent in view of the extreme volatility in unprocessed food prices and rapid increases in agricultural commodity prices (Table 2).

However, for online card payment transactions, due to the necessary significant technical changes, both for payment service providers and merchants operating e-shops, However, the delayed application of security requirements for online card transactions should not adversely affect customers. During the transitional period, payment service providers should recover the value of all unauthorized card payment transactions on the Internet for which no indepth identification of the customer has been applied, and the BNB monitors compliance with this requirement. Although the pandemic has led to some delays in the implementation of migration plans, according to available data, we expect Bulgaria to successfully complete migration by the end of the year within the projected pan-European deadline. Along with the work on the implementation of the current legal framework, many efforts are focused on its further improvement with a view to the emergence of innovative market participants, new technologies, changing business models. In September, the European Commission published the Digital Finance Package, part of which is the “EU Strategy for Retail Payments” and the “Strategy for the Digitalisation of EU Financial Services". The aim of both strategies is to outline the medium-term guidelines and priorities for the development of digitalization in the financial sector. Central to the payment strategy is immediate payments, executed within seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, called the “new rule” in the strategy. Bulgaria is not lagging behind these trends.
François Villeroy de Galhau: The consequences of Brexit for the French and European financial sectors Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de resolution (ACPR), at the ACPR conference, Paris, 23 November 2018. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you along with Bernard Delas to this new conference organised by the ACPR, which this morning will focus on the consequences of Brexit for the financial sector. This issue is admittedly constantly evolving in line with current events... I welcome the agreement that was reached between the European negotiators and their British counterparts last week and we all hope that it will pass through the stages to come and ultimately be finalised. However, in a context that remains uncertain, we must be cautious: even if we hope to avoid it, we must also be ready for a possible no deal scenario. The ACPR and the Banque de France are preparing for this eventuality to ensure the smooth functioning of the financial system. That will be my first point and for that reason I will discuss it using the conditional. I would then like to look beyond Brexit to see how we can transform some of today’s difficulties into opportunities for the future and build a more integrated “financial Eurosystem”. ** I.

Or, put differently, consumer spending in the UK is probably already above the level projected to prevail in Q3 in the May MPR scenario. Some of these data cover the opening-up of non-essential retail stores on 15 June. That opening-up was quantitatively significant, representing around 13% of consumption spending and halving the share of goods and services consumers which were previously unavailable (Chart 10b). Initial indications from payments and footfall figures suggest this opening-up has accelerated, perhaps significantly, consumer spending. In particular, CHAPS data suggests spending on delayable goods has now returned to pre-Covid levels (Chart 8), well ahead of the corresponding May scenario profile. Looking ahead, the opening of pubs, restaurants, hotels, cinemas and other hospitality outlets on 4 July will provide further impetus to spending. My own market intelligence suggests considerable pent-up demand. Together, these categories represent around another 10% of consumer spending. Initial reports from businesses in these sectors, including from the Bank’s Agents, suggest advance bookings are brisk. There is less evidence on which to base an updated judgement on the other components of GDP. For net trade, the May MPR scenario suggested around a 40% peak-to-trough fall in gross export and import volumes. Trade and port traffic data suggest a somewhat smaller contraction. With the world economy recovering sooner than in the UK, this implies a slightly larger boost to UK GDP growth from net trade in Q2. For housing and business investment, there are even less data on which to make an assessment.
Indeed, as provided for under its Law of Autonomy, in exercising the functions derived from its membership of the European System of Central Banks, the Government may not give instructions to the Banco de España, and the latter may not seek or take them.3 These principles are also applicable to the functions exercised as a banking supervisor within the SSM. Given the dual role of the Banco de España as a national central bank of the Eurosystem and a supervisory authority of the SSM, its independence takes on an extra dimension regarding the necessary guarantee as to the performance of both functions autonomously (which does not mean separately) within a single institution. In this respect, it should be stressed that the governance of the Banco de España is underpinned by an orderly distribution of different powers among the bodies that the Law of Autonomy specifies as the governing bodies of our institution: Governor, Deputy Governor, Governing Council and Executive Commission. Thus, the functions assigned to the Banco de España by law are performed in a balanced way by these bodies, in accordance with the powers set out in Annex 2. These arrangements are based on the presence in these collegiate bodies of a significant percentage of independent Council members (by way of example, six out of ten of the Council members with voting rights on the Governing Council) appointed on the basis of their competence, knowledge and experience in the field of economics, the financial system or law.

That would be in line with international evidence showing the general slowness of these adjustment processes and highlights the need for such a process to be complemented by banks’ active management by means of sale agreements in respect of their portfolios of problem assets. Indeed, in 2017 and this year there have been successive announcements by banks of agreements with asset management companies to reduce the volume of non-productive assets on their balance sheets. This will result in an improvement in the quality of Spanish bank balance sheets and, consequently, in their supply of credit to the economy as a whole. In fact, the evidence available shows that there is a negative correlation between the non-performing loan ratio and credit growth. From another perspective, the swift progress in correcting the high levels of bad debts in Spain and in other euro area countries is crucial for easing the way to finalising the Banking Union project in respect of its remaining pillar, which is none other than the definitive creation of a pan-European, pooled and sufficiently backed deposit guarantee scheme. All the foregoing justifies the special interest we have as economic and supervisory authorities in credit institutions taking the appropriate measures to expedite the ongoing reduction in the volume of impaired assets. One of the most significant initiatives here is the package disclosed by the European Commission in March.
However, I think a sensible way to address signs of severe misalignments, beyond the leaning against the wind with monetary policy, is through sterilized intervention. But, in order for this to be effective and coherent with the inflation targeting framework, some conditions must be met: •  In the first place, it must be consistent with the inflation target, in order for the intervention not to jeopardize the credibility of monetary policy. •  Secondly, to safeguard monetary policy independence, once the intervention is announced, it must be implemented mechanically. All this shields the conduct of monetary policy, typically carried out in regular pre-established meetings, from the extraordinary decision of buying or not buying foreign currency. In particular, the sterilization of intervention decisions permits to preserve both the credibility and the independent management of monetary policy. •  Finally, and because of this sterilization requisite, the cost of intervention must be properly considered, because it entails a quasi-fiscal component that could be significant. The Chilean experience last year was in line with the aforesaid principles. It was done in a moment where there was clear evidence of misalignment with respect to the levels deemed consistent with long-term fundamentals. It was also totally consistent with the inflation objective, and started at a moment – April 2008 – in which there were rather benign inflation figures that revealed a smaller risk of unwanted inflationary propagation.

Lending standards have certainly tightened, but the Chilean economy is far from suffering the problems that other countries are facing. Accordingly, the inflation outlook changed significantly, while monetary policy reacted with a change that was large in magnitude and swift in implementation. October 2008 was the month where y-o-y inflation peaked. November brought some relief, largely determined by the drop in fuel prices in world markets. By then, no break in the inflationary trend was foreseen. Nonetheless, given the weakening outlook for activity and inflation, the Central Bank not only did not raise the MPR – which was the most likely path of monetary policy as discussed in September’s Monetary Policy Report presented to Congress – but also communicated that the most likely course of action would be an easing of policy by early 2009. In January 2009, with a clearer assessment of the reduced inflationary pressures, the MPR was lowered by 100 basis points. Later, with the evidence of alleviated inflationary pressures and drastic increases in downward risks to growth and inflation, the Central Bank decided to cut the MPR by 250 basis points at both its meetings of February and March. The monetary easing process continued and completed 775 basis points in seven monthly meetings, bringing the MPR to 0.50%, the minimum level deemed adequate for a normal functioning of money markets.
Indeed, in our current system, bank deposits are essentially an existing “digital currency” that we all use. What some central bankers have in mind, however, is a more substantive change. But it seems to me that the need for this change is often expressed quite vaguely. What problems of the current monetary system, and especially what challenges to monetary policy, should central bank digital currencies address? And how should these digital currencies be designed if they are to be useful in practice? These are other topics of my talk today. The big problem of the current monetary policy framework is the effective lower bound on interest rates. The underlying neutral rate of interest has probably started to rise recently, but it will hardly reach the levels we were used to in the 1980s and 1990s anytime soon. In other words, during the next recession all major central banks will hit the effective lower bound again. How could a digital currency help? One thing a digital currency can enable is the possibility of deeply negative interest rates. I am not a fan of negative rates at all, but of course one can imagine a scenario in which some central banks replace cash with a digital currency.

A recent Economist article even asked, “Can central banks talk too much?”15 It essentially argued that forward guidance on interest rates could complicate price dynamics in the bond market as the central bank simultaneously signals its intentions to the markets, while taking its cue from them. As policy decisions are ultimately a judgement call made against an inherently uncertain backdrop, there is naturally a limit to how much transparency can do to make central bank action predictable. Communication is also context-specific, where a standard rules-based approach will not work. Discussions at forums like this are extremely valuable because they provide the opportunity to share experiences from real-life settings, including what has worked and what has not, as well as the pitfalls and the nuances. Hopefully, some general guiding principles can emerge, that will prove useful for practitioners gathered here today. In conclusion, the guidelines for monetary policy communications are probably due for a refresh given the increased complexity facing the formulation and implementation of monetary policy. For 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  sure, central banks must continue to talk, engage, and be accessible and accountable. How we do it could evolve, and this high-level seminar serves to help us do just that and hone our communication skills. I wish you a most productive session. Thank you. References Bernanke, B S (2007), “Federal Reserve Communications”, Speech at the Cato Institute 25th Annual Monetary Conference, Washington, D.C., 14 November.