samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
These rigorous asset classification criteria indicate that potentially problematic assets at savings banks in credit to construction and real estate developers are € billion, 46% of the total. The specific loan loss provisions set aside for these problem assets account for 31% (if we added general provisions, the figure would be 38%). Obviously, the specific provisions considered to compute these figures are those associated to this potentially problematic loans and not the total amount of specific provisions. Spain’s system of specific provisions has been tightened to drive banks towards making tougher and swifter provisions. A non-performing loan, once the value of the collateral has been taken into account, should be fully provisioned in one year. Collateral value is considered using significant haircuts, which range from 20% in the case of completed housing to 50% in that of land. Provisioning must also be made for foreclosures, up to 30% if they have been on the balance sheet for two years. The provisions are determined by means of transparent parameters, compliance with which is obligatory for all banks. This means they are not the subject of negotiation between bank managers and external auditors. In sum, Spanish deposit institutions are not hiding potentially problem exposures, and nor are the figures for losses small or the provisions made low or far removed from the fair value of these assets. We are very transparent and rigorous in valuing assets and we will continue to be so in the future.

To accomplish this, we have a team dedicated to going out into the region to gather economic intelligence and to help our communities develop programs to support local economic development. Let me speak a little further about our work analyzing local economic conditions and how we use this work to help our stakeholders. We have developed a number of analytical tools to track the regional economy. To get the most up-to-date read on economic conditions in our District as possible, we conduct two monthly business surveys. Our Empire State Manufacturing Survey gives a real-time read on manufacturing conditions in New York State, while our Business Leaders Survey allows us to track economic activity across the tri-state region in the broader services sector. We also conduct regular polls of small businesses in our area to better understand their evolving situation and needs. In addition, we publish monthly indexes of economic activity for New York State, New York City and New Jersey. We also monitor the financial health of households through our quarterly Household Debt and Credit Report and track the state of school finances in our region. But economic data can only tell you so much. It is also imperative that we engage with people in our region to see the broader picture behind the facts and figures. To this end, I regularly travel to various parts of our District to hear firsthand about local economic conditions and to get a sense of the issues and concerns facing businesses and residents.
More than the specific figures in the projections, what matters most is knowing the direction and intensity of the forces driving current dynamics, so we may better identify and gauge the pressing measures needed. The forecasts published by international institutions in recent weeks show that we face a severe global recession. Earlier this month, on 13 March, the International Monetary Fund published for the first time a negative growth rate for the world economy of between 0.5 and 1 pp for this year. A moderate recovery is estimated for 2010, but one still far below what we thought the growth potential trajectory was. Unfortunately, for several months now, each new projection has habitually entailed a notable downward correction on the projection immediately preceding it. It would therefore not be unusual, once the IMF updates its world macroeconomic outlook in a few weeks, that the resulting forecasts should have worsened on those published this month. The outlook for the euro area does not differ substantially from what the IMF anticipates for the developed economies. Early in the month the European Central Bank released what are still the latest projections for the area as a whole, placing growth at between -3.2% and -2.2% for the current year and between -0.7% and 0.7% for 2010. As for Spain, next Friday, repeating an initiative first launched two years back, we shall publish our projections for 2009 and 2010. I shall leave the specific figures for Friday’s release.

The programme offers wide ranging topics for Islamic finance and caters to the needs of a group of central bankers, regulators and Government officials. We wish to thank the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey for their support for making this training initiative possible. Before I end my remarks, I would like to take this opportunity to re-emphasise our commitment to strengthen strategic collaboration with Turkey. With me is a delegation of the Malaysian financial institutions, investment institutions and professional firms ready to explore, engage and leverage on each other’s market opportunities. There is much that can be done by both sides to jointly explore and realise the potential for mutual benefits. I strongly believe that today’s event will end on a positive note, with both Turkish and Malaysian delegation able to identify on the next steps. It is our fervent hope that the business and financial community of both countries would establish regular contacts to further strengthen collaborative network and to follow through on some of the understandings reached today. I take this opportunity to offer for the next follow meeting or seminar to be held in Malaysia. It is always useful to see first-hand the opportunities and prospect that Malaysia has to offer. I wish to thank you all for your participation in making this event a success and to His Excellency Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the panel of speakers for the ideas, pointers and suggestions that you would share to make this event a successful one.
Lessons from the crisis In the aftermath of crises, corporate governance standards and practices often come under scrutiny. For instance, after the Enron/Worldcom failures, critics pointed to the lack of independence of auditors and Audit Committees, and to deficiencies in accounting standards. After the bursting of the dot.com bubble, attention was drawn to the severe conflicts of interest by brokers and analysts. The recent financial crisis has been no different. Indeed, reviews by international bodies and national agencies have found that weak corporate governance played a role in this crisis. For instance, the OECD report on "The Corporate Governance Lessons from the Financial Crisis"1 noted that "the financial crisis can be, to an important extent, attributed to failures and weaknesses in corporate governance arrangements which did not serve their purpose to safeguard against excessive risk taking in a number of financial services companies." While many of the corporate governance failures that have been uncovered so far affected financial companies, many of the structural weaknesses may also be common to large and complex listed firms. It is therefore relevant for Boards of other companies to reflect on these findings. Let me briefly highlight a few common themes. The first relates to the quality and composition of Boards. Research shows that although having a good balance of directors with a range of skills and experience that are relevant to the business of the firm is an essential foundation for good corporate governance, this was also often the most neglected.

A number of reports2 also found weaknesses in the implementation of effective risk management. In many cases, risk was not managed on an enterprise-wide basis and Boards were not fully apprised of the level of risk facing the company. Overseas regulators are now reviewing the role of Boards in providing guidance on the alignment of corporate strategy with risk-appetite, as well as on appropriate internal structures in risk management. Not surprisingly, remuneration practices have attracted the most public attention. The alignment of executive and Board remuneration with the longer term interests of the company and its shareholders is a widely accepted corporate governance principle. Nonetheless, compensation practices that rewarded staff handsomely for short-term gains, without any corresponding penalties for longer-term losses, have been blamed for encouraging excessive risk taking in some institutions. A number of jurisdictions, such as Australia and the US, are considering legislation that will address this by empowering shareholders to have a more direct role in setting remuneration. Creation of the Corporate Governance Council Financial institutions in Singapore have generally been prudent in their business, and have weathered the crisis well. Listed companies in Singapore that have maintained high standards of governance have similarly withstood the crisis. Nevertheless, we must not be  1  Kirkpatrick, Grant (February 2009), "The Corporate Governance Lessons from the Financial Crisis", OECD.
In addition, these shocks have shown a greater tendency to spread rapidly to other financial markets. The rapidity with which the Asian crisis spread across East Asia in ’97-’98 is a good example. Many of us here today may wish that we have the ability to predict with certainty when the next crisis will strike. It is, however, far more fruitful to adequately prepare ourselves for the inevitable. And that, in short, means enhancing our risk management capability. BIS Review 7/2002  1  Risk Management Initiatives in Singapore MAS will introduce three risk management initiatives to help financial institutions in Singapore better manage the challenges ahead. The first initiative is a MAS guideline that aims to help banks prepare themselves to meet the ill effects of financial crises and shocks. One of the ”defining” features of a financial crisis is that it strikes suddenly and once it has struck, it gives very little time for financial market participants to react. How then can we better prepare ourselves for a crisis? Stress testing offers financial institutions a systematic methodology to prepare for financial crises. Stress testing is based on the old military saying, “the more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war”. That is, financial institutions that have a comprehensive programme to stress test their portfolios will be better prepared when a stress event occurs.

The Federal Reserve and, to a lesser extent, the Bank of England have also used this instrument to signal their intention to provide a greater stimulus to the economy. Unconventional measures affecting the size and composition of the central bank’s balance sheet are also being extensively used. In the euro area, in October 2008, the ECB changed its liquidity management policy, implementing its main refinancing operations at a fixed rate with full allotment. In May 2009 it lengthened the average maturity period of monetary policy operations and set in train a purchase programme for covered bonds and other similar assets to reactivate this market segment. One year later, faced with the qualitative leap that the euro area sovereign debt crisis entailed, it introduced the Securities Market Programme. Under this programme it purchased, always on the secondary market, public debt of the countries where the tensions were disproportionately restricting the funding of their economies. Finally, when doubts over the viability of the euro reached critical levels in summer 2012, the ECB responded with an announcement that it would, within its mandate, do whatever was needed to save the euro. It designed a new securities purchase programme – the Outright Monetary Transactions Programme – which, though its use has not been necessary, has been instrumental in changing expectations in a favourable direction for market stability and normalisation. Conversely, in the United States, the changes in the Federal Reserve balance sheet have been linked to massive asset purchases as part of a standard quantitative easing programme.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Basel III implementation has been proceeding on a comparable basis in advanced and emerging market countries. The Financial Stability Board has been monitoring the unintended effects of reforms on EME banks and EMEs report no significant adverse effects. 4 However, potential differences in reform implementation across jurisdictions could create challenges, particularly in countries where foreign banks are active. This underscores the importance of continued home and host coordination. I would like to briefly touch on two U.S.-specific financial regulatory issues with international implications, namely enhanced prudential standards for foreign banks, including intermediate holding company requirements for the largest institutions, and issues surrounding correspondent banking, U.S. anti-money laundering rules, and “de-risking”. Of these, the latter may have the most relevance for the EMEs broadly. The adoption of enhanced prudential standards for foreign banking organizations (FBOs) is a key element of U.S. regulatory reforms, and a significant change in supervision of FBOs. 5 The largest FBOs (with U.S. non-branch assets greater than $ billion) must hold their U.S. subsidiaries under an intermediate holding company (IHC), and meet various capital, leverage, liquidity, stress testing, risk management and corporate governance requirements. These requirements respond to a mandate in the Dodd-Frank Act for enhanced standards for the largest domestic and foreign banks.

Spencer Dale: Inflation targeting and the Monetary Policy Committee’s forward guidance Speech by Mr Spencer Dale, Executive Director, Monetary Policy, and Chief Economist of the Bank of England, at the International Journal of Central Banking Annual Conference, “Inflation targeting and its discontents”, Warsaw, 6 September 2013. *  *  *  A central theme of this conference has been to highlight potential shortcomings of inflation targeting and to consider potential alternatives. I believe that the traumatic events in the UK economy over the past five years have, in fact, strengthened the case for inflation targeting. The credibility of the inflation target has played a crucial role in anchoring inflation expectations over the past five years, a period in which inflation has been consistently above target. That credibility has been vital in giving the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) the flexibility to loosen monetary policy aggressively in order to support growth and jobs. But while it has not constrained the MPC’s freedom to act in support of the economy, the inflation target, on its own, has proved less well suited to addressing some of the exceptional communications challenges posed by the sustained combination of weak growth and elevated inflation. I would highlight two in particular: the need to make clear the central role that monetary policy has played in supporting output and employment; and the need to provide guidance about the Committee’s view of the appropriate trade-off between bringing inflation back to target and stimulating the recovery.
The prospect of Brexit and our future relationship Let me say from the outset that Brexit is and remains bad news, not only for the United Kingdom, but also for Europe. But we respect the British choice, whatever it turns out to be. At this stage, both the British and Europeans are faced with great uncertainty surrounding the outcome. We are still hoping for a deal, but we have to be ready for a no-deal and all the risks it entails. Supervisors both at national and European levels have encouraged and monitored the implementation of contingency plans by the financial industry: on our side, we are ready. Let me add one word on the future relationship between the UK and the European Union. After Brexit, we will obviously no longer belong to the same European club, but we will hopefully remain close partners and friends. The UK will continue to participate in international forums – such as the G7, G20 FSB, BIS, etc. – where cooperation will be much needed to face our common challenges such as financial stability, digitalisation and the regulation of Bigtechs, as well as the challenge of green finance. In a context where the multilateral order is being put at risk, let me express the wish that the UK, together with the EU, may resolutely strive to renew multilateralism.

In addition, if issuers of stable coins also want to offer banking services such as deposits, financial investments and loans, then they will have to obtain a banking license in all countries where they operate. Otherwise these activities would be illegal. Stable coin projects reveal gaps in existing cross-border payment systems. Hence, at the European level, we should aim at promoting a genuine European strategy for retail payments. Payments are no longer a mere boring back-office technicality. They are innovative, and they provide two strategic assets: data, and daily customer relations. The raw truth however is that the European payments market is already dominated by non-European stakeholders. Furthermore, the growing role of non-European digital firms – be they American or Chinese – offering payments solutions should be taken seriously. Despite the creativity of the European ecosystem of payments, our market remains too fragmented. We don’t have much time left. We – the Eurosystem and the Banque de France – call for the creation of pan-European payment solutions, building on a common brand and on a state-of-the-art instant payment such as the Target Instant Payment Settlement infrastructure (TIPS) managed by the Eurosystem, and contributing to much more efficient international payments including for remittances. Some also suggest that the right answer to Libra is accelerating the creation of a Central Bank digital currency (CDBC). This is a scintillating subject, but a separate one.
This brings us to the fundamental question - to what extent has the crisis affected the potential growth in the region, and what needs to be done to lift it to speed up the convergence which remains low in the region – just 37% of the EU average. Clearly, macroeconomic policies - fiscal and monetary, can play a growth supportive role, especially in the short-run, but they cannot be a substitute for structural policies needed to address structural bottlenecks across all long-term determinants of growth - labor, capital and total factor productivity. Now let me quickly reflect on the state of play of these long-term determinants of growth. Concerning labor, the region has been facing constant shrinking of working-age population - 0.5% on average, per year in the last nine years, mostly due to unfavorable demographics and emigration. If we take into account estimates that 1/3 of the emigration is high-skilled labor, then obviously, this is not only an issue of quantity, but quality as well. In this context, Global Competitiveness Report points to a large human capital gap of the region with an index rank of 62.2, compared to 16.7 for EU15. The health crisis emphasized even more the long-standing and burning issues that need to be tackled such as increasing participation rates (that currently hover around 54%), rising life expectancy, skill mismatches, and in particular digital skills and "jobs skills of tomorrow", although given the structural nature of the problem it will continue to weigh on the medium-term growth dynamics.

In particular, the employment growth rate has reached levels unknown since the start of the decade, and this has been duly reflected in the indicators of consumer confidence. Overall, the information available suggests the expansionary phase of euro area output will continue over the coming quarters, though possibly at a somewhat lower rate than in the first half of 2006. In any event, around the turn of the year the economic situation will foreseeably be perturbed by the temporary impact of the rise in the main VAT rate in Germany in early 2007. Against this background, medium-term risks of a growth downswing cannot be ruled out if the slowdown in the US economy becomes more intense. Adding to this uncertainty is the possibility that oil prices will resume the upward course interrupted in August and, over a longer horizon, that there will be a disorderly correction of the macro-financial imbalances between the main world areas. The most recent changes in the growth rate of the harmonised index of consumer prices have been much assisted by the marked decline in oil prices since mid-August and by the stripping out of the base effects from the previous year. These factors have meant that, for the first time since early 2005, inflation has stood below 2%, the ECB target (it stood in fact at 1.6% in October). Beyond the temporary variations in this variable, the index that excludes energy goods prices has also performed  BIS Review 117/2006  1  more favourably throughout the year.
After the transaction, the central bank has a building on the asset side of its balance sheet. But, at the same time, on the liability side, there is an equivalent amount representing the currency issue of the bank. Governments impose inflation tax on the society by borrowing from central banks. When such borrowings are effected, the government would give the central bank a government security such as a treasury bill. The central bank, in return, permits the government to take away an equivalent amount of currency and spend it to make payments. So, on the asset side of the bank’s balance sheet, it has a treasury bill. On the liability side, this asset is matched by a new liability called currency issued by the bank. But, to acquire that asset, the central bank has to spend only a fraction of the face value of the asset enabling it to make a huge profit out of the transaction. Central banks’ lending to governments become highly inflationary on another count. That happens when the commercial banks make use of this currency issued by the central banks as seed money to produce more bank money in the form of deposits. When governments spend the currency borrowed from central banks, such currency finally gets back to commercial banks as deposits of the public. Commercial banks, in turn, use such deposits to create more deposits and credit.

They create deposits and credit in multiple terms restricted only by the public’s preference for currency as against deposits and banks’ own need for keeping a safe cash reserve to meet public’s demand for cash. In Sri Lanka, commercial banks could create bank money five times higher than the initial amount of currency issued by the central bank. Because of this ability to self-produce in multiple terms, (in Sri Lanka, that multiplier is 5), the seed or reserve money produced by central banks is also called “high powered money”. Thus, the total money in an economy would be much more than what a central bank would issue to the economy. When that money which is known as money supply chases after the limited availability of goods and services, the general price level would elevate to a higher level. If it happens continuously, inflation sets in an economy imposing an inflation tax on the society. Why is there a preference for inflation tax? There is a general preference for inflation tax for several reasons. First, it is easy, quick and convenient to borrow from the central bank, compared to conventional forms of taxes available to a government. Such conventional taxes need to be backed by legislation, take time to generate the tax revenue and have to be enforced by an elaborate tax administration. It also runs the risk of failing to generate the required revenue due to tax evasion and avoidance.