samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Bandid Nijathaworn: Thailand’s banking and economic outlook Keynote address by Dr Bandid Nijathaworn, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Australian-Thai Chamber Luncheon, Bangkok, 3 April 2009. *  *  *  Let me first thank AustCham Thailand, especially President Andrew Durieux, for the invitation to speak at today’s luncheon. It has been almost four years since I last spoke at an AustCham event, so, it is a pleasure to be back. Today I will speak on Thailand’s banking and economic outlook, a subject which I am sure will be of interest to all of you. In keeping with what a good luncheon speaker should do, I will keep my remarks short and to the point, so that we will have plenty of time for desserts and for questions and answers. This week is undoubtedly an important week for the global economy, as leaders and finance ministers of the world’s twenty most important economies gather in London to map out a strategy that aims to comprehensively address the current global financial crisis. Up to now, policies to tackle the crisis have been left largely to the individual economies in response to the problems that arise. But as the crisis has mutated into a major global problem, a coordinated policy response at a global level is clearly needed to ensure a synchronized recovery in all the key parts of the global economy. Without coordinated and comprehensive policy response, a synchronized recovery will not take place.

And without a synchronized recovery, the world will be at risk of running into a weak, patchy, and unsustained recovery for a prolonged period. So, this week is really an important week, and what has been announced so far by the world leaders, in terms of the new resources that will be made available to aid the global recovery, is positive for the market and for the global economy. The current global crisis is now in its 20th month. My count is since the Federal Reserve took the unprecedented step to reduce its policy interest rate sharply for the first time in August 2007, signaling the serious nature of the problem. Thailand, being a small open economy, could not escape the impact of the turmoil. The impact on Thailand, so far, has been felt through a sharp reversal of capital flows, on account of deleveraging by foreign investors, as well as through a tightening of access to foreign capital, and through a dislocation in economic activities as export and tourism receipts fell sharply. The banking sector, however, has been resilient given the low direct exposure to the toxic assets, the low reliance on global liquidity as a source of funding, and the strong capital base. The fact that the Thai banking sector remains safe and sound is no accident. It is largely the result of continuing improvement in risk management capacity of the banking sector following the Asian financial crisis, under a stronger regulatory framework and risk-based supervision.
I’m sure I don’t have to explain too much why this keeps me awake at night. Suffice it to say that as I think about the kinds of risks that might cause the next crisis, cybersecurity is the one that worries me the most. The worry is not focused solely on the financial sector. This is much bigger than just banks. It includes many other sectors, most notably, the retail sector. In particular, cyber threats pose a potentially systemic risk to financial stability through the disruption or corruption of critical payment, clearing and settlement systems and related data. A big question we need to think about is how firms, big and small, can protect themselves from these risks. As I have noted in the past, all of us face quite a bit of work ahead on the cybersecurity front. Importantly for us, as supervisors, we must determine the best areas of focus given our  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  perspective and the range of skills that we can bring to the topic. For example, in the nearterm we are continuing supervisory plans related to cyber security work at the complex financial institutions. We are also identifying “core” expectations for smaller firms so that they, too, can take appropriate measures to harden their defenses. We are also undertaking concentrated work to: develop a better understanding of vulnerabilities and emerging practices: develop an approach to enhanced communications around cyber events, and revisit supervisory guidance in this area.

We have seen progress in this area over the past few years with some firms hiring outside experts, engaging in cultural diagnostic work and implementing programs that focus on improving ethics, behaviors and internal culture. We’ve also seen progress in our direct engagement with boards of directors – and we’ve seen this across institutions of all sizes. When we, as supervisors, first began requiring deeper engagement with directors and senior leaders, the reactions varied, with an initial wariness of the purpose. In fact, directors were often accompanied by a compliance or regulatory relations liaison during our early interactions with them. Over time, though, as senior leaders and board members recognized the advantages of this level of engagement, the process has been smoother and our exchanges are becoming more engaging and direct (and few if any “escorts” are present during our interactions now). While the level of  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  engagement varies across firms, in general, we are seeing boards being more active in asking questions, providing oversight of management and engaging with supervisors. We, in turn, have deeper insight into decision making dynamics at the board and c-suite level, including the how and why of decision making on key strategic issues. Regular communications also encourage early and proactive surfacing of issues. In addition, we’ve seen good progress in recruiting additional directors to complement current skills on the board – better positioning the board to engage with the senior management team in a productive and appropriately challenging way.
This issue is related to a topic I will return to; adequate disclosure of GLAC, and the ability of creditors to be able to  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  assess accurately their position in the creditor hierarchy and the corresponding risk their exposures have. But first, I would like to point out that requiring eligible instruments to rank below excluded liabilities (such as derivatives), does not mean that G-SIBs will have to meet GLAC with traditional Tier 2 debt. There are various mechanisms available through which “senior” bonded debt could remain senior to traditional subordinated debt but junior to the general creditor class. For example, this could be achieved via contractual provisions; as resolution authorities are empowered to require for MREL in the BRRD. Another option is for G-SIBs to issue GLAC-eligible instruments from a holding company and downstream the proceeds (often referred to as “structural subordination”). Another option that has been suggested is either to prefer excluded liabilities or subordinate eligible liabilities in statute – although agreeing changes to national insolvency laws could prove challenging. Again, whatever the approach, adequate disclosure at the legal entity level will be crucial to allow creditors to identify easily their position in the creditor hierarchy. With such adequate disclosure, there is no a priori reason why the cost of meeting such a requirement would differ between the approaches.

And while no one I think clearly understands just why the euro has been as weak as it has particularly once the Eurozone economy began to pick up from about the middle of last year - the evidence is that it has not had as much to do with a change in relative monetary conditions as between the UK, and the US, on the one hand and the Eurozone on the other as is popularly supposed. It is in fact much more difficult to affect the exchange rate - directly through our domestic monetary policy than you might imagine. Of course we do take full account, in our forecasts and in our policy judgements, of the implications of the exchange rate, and of the international environment more generally, for our own economy. That was why we moved aggressively to cut interest rates a year or so ago. Sterling did not then fall against the euro as you might have expected - it actually rose. Even though we could not change the international environment, we were able to cushion its negative effect on the economy as a whole by providing an offsetting stimulus to the domestic economy. Had we not done so, we might well have suffered recession in the UK. BIS Review 18/2000  2  But the situation now is very different with the economy as a whole has strongly recovered and is now once again, operating close to capacity and apparently continuing to grow at above trend.
And as if this was not blatant enough, all this occurred in a climate of malicious rumors about the RMB and the Hong Kong dollar, glorified by publications from the so-called in-house currency strategies and analysts, and by the usual “reliable information from authoritative sources”. Well, it did not quite work out the way they intended. They miscalculated on two counts. First, they did not factor in the need for the HKSAR Government funding this year’s budget deficit, unexpected at the time when the budget was drawn up, through a drawdown of foreign reserves. And so the currency board adjustment mechanism involving sharply higher BIS Review 85/1998  -4-  interest rates was not triggered. Second, they did not realize that the HKSAR Government was far from the sitting duck they thought we were. Committed to the free market as we may be, we took the view that free markets do not mean that markets can be freely manipulated. They need to be fair markets as well. We have a responsibility to tackle market manipulation and avoid serious market dislocations developing. So after much agonizing we acted on two fronts. First, we intervened in the stock and futures markets to deter market manipulation, by making sure that the manipulation did not pay off. Second, we followed this action through with various measures to strengthen our monetary and financial systems. On the monetary side, we introduced technical measures to modify our currency board arrangements of our linked exchange rate system to make it less susceptible to manipulation.

6  http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/Documents/pdf/chancellorletter120321.pdf  7  See for example “Recent Developments in the Sterling Monetary Framework” http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2011/speech487.pdf  BIS central bankers’ speeches  available  at:  3  money can surely be relied on to prevent deflation, but even if it provides a temporary boost to real activity it can’t guarantee sustaining a particular real growth rate. Third, the split into prices and real output and the overall outturn for the economy, depend on what else is happening at the same time: monetary policy is just one of the various forces at work shaping the pressures on output and inflation. We don’t conduct monetary policy in a scientific laboratory where everything else can be held constant. QE is often described as being a great experiment. In fact, the theory of monetary policy in the economic textbooks that I was brought up with at Bristol, and later, all considered the supply of money to be the central bank’s primary policy instrument. The use of interest rates to set monetary policy appeared to be viewed by many academic authors as something of a slightly unfortunate and uninteresting practicality8. I want to be clear about one very important point: for monetary policy to stimulate the economy, the Bank of England has to cut interest rates and/or increase the supply of money. That gives firms and households an incentive to spend rather than to save.
28  Companies’ responses are translated to impacts using the assumptions described under Chart 30. 27  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  27  Chart 30: Bank of England Agents’ Survey of impact of different Brexit scenarios Approximate estimated change (%) 3 Deal and transition 2  No deal and no transition  1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 Output  Employment  Investment in UK  Exports  Sources: Bank of England and Bank calculations. Notes: Chart shows aggregated results from surveys from December 2018 to April 2019. Companies were asked ‘Relative to the last 12 months, what is the likely impact on the following for your business over the next year in each scenario: a deal and transition period and no deal and no transition period?’ For each relevant business factor, respondents were asked to choose between ‘Fall greater than 10%’; ‘-10 to -2%’; ‘Little change’; ‘+2 to +10%’ and ‘Rise greater than 10%’. Responses weighted by employment. Half weight was given to the +/- 2-10% response and full weight was given to those that responded 'Rise/fall greater than 10%'. The approximate estimated change for output, employment, investment and exports are based on a simple calculation assuming a midpoint figure for each of the response categories. For “Fall greater than 10%” the mid-point was -15%; for “-10 to -2%” the mid-point was 6%; for “Little change” the mid-point was 0%; for “2 to10%” the mid-point was +6%; for “Rise greater than 10%” the mid-point was +15%.

It will take time for the measures introduced to affect all households with mortgages It is now important to take measures to improve the long-term functioning of the housing market, which will both reduce the risks we find worrying and also create the conditions for the healthy development of society. Measures within several policy areas will be needed to achieve this. One area where we have seen measures is macroprudential policy. Finansinspektionen (the Swedish financial supervisory authority) has taken measures to reduce the risks inherent in household indebtedness and to increase resilience against shocks. This is welcome and positive. However, the measures introduced, such as a loan-to-value limit and amortisation requirements, affect new loans only, and it will therefore take time before they affect all households with mortgages. Some of the macroprudential policy measures have also been criticised. Among other things, the amortisation requirements have been accused of making it difficult for some groups, such as first-time buyers, to enter the housing market, as the requirements restrict households’ scope for borrowing. This is, however, part of the aim of the amortisation requirements and, without these restrictions, household indebtedness would also risk continuing to increase at an excessively rapid rate. Without an effective macroprudential policy, borrowing households would choose to borrow more and demand more housing, without considering that, when all borrowers behave like this, housing prices are pushed upwards. 4 Higher housing prices mean that borrowers must cut back on other consumption and work more, which decreases their welfare over the long term.
Maintaining ecological sustainability requires global initiatives, advances in technology, and changes in policies and consumption patterns. To its credit, China is serious over environmental issues. The recent 17th CCP Congress reaffirms Chinese leaders’ pursuit of “harmonious development”. It also explains why Premier Wen Jiabao agreed readily to my proposal that Singapore and China jointly build an eco-city in China – a city where people, economic activities and the environment co-exist in harmony. We are in the process of choosing a non-agricultural site which lacks water, so that the ecocity there could be a model for China’s new cities. Priorities of ASEAN Southeast Asia is an important piece of the regional structure and will play its part. Later this month, the ASEAN and East Asia Summits will be held in Singapore. Singapore, as ASEAN Chair, has identified climate change and the environment as key agenda items. This will sustain the momentum of discussions on such issues until the December UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Meeting in Bali. In practical terms, Singapore and Malaysia are working with neighbouring Indonesian provinces to tackle peat land fires and develop sustainable land-clearing practices. While Myanmar will no doubt grab media attention at the ASEAN Summit, it will not be the most important story for ASEAN. Of greater importance is the fact that ASEAN leaders will sign a politically-binding declaration to establish an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. ASEAN will evolve into a single market and production base with free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled labour.

Goh Chok Tong: Staying ahead of the Asian curve Speech by Mr Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister of the Republic of Singapore and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at Barclays Asia Forum, Singapore, 1 November 2007. *  *  *  I extend a warm welcome to all of you, especially to those who have not come to Singapore in recent years. I would also like to thank Barclays for organising this Asia Forum as well as this weekend’s Singapore Open. I hope the Singapore Open will grow in prestige as you expand your presence in Singapore and Asia. Singapore’s economic growth rates in the past few years have surprised many, including ourselves. We did not expect to be able to consistently achieve growth rates of above 6% per annum as we are a mature economy. Yes, we have remade our economy but the good growth was also due to the buoyant world economy and a surging Asia. Singapore’s future growth will depend not only on our own efforts but also on our ability to anticipate trends in our external environment and stay ahead of the curve. This morning, I would like to share with you how we see developments in Asia and the challenges before us. Political outlook Let me start with the political outlook. I believe that Asia will remain stable and the regional environment conducive to growth. Post-9/11, the world had to adjust to new insecurities posed by terrorism.
Anson, M, Bholat, D, King, M and Thomas, M (2017), ‘The Bank of England as lender of last resort: new historical evidence from daily transactional data’, Bank of England Staff Working Paper, No. 691. Autor, D (2014), ‘Education, and the Rise of Earnings Inequality Among the “Other 99 Percent”, Science, 23 May 2014, pp. 843-851. Autor, D (2017), ‘Economic and political consequences of China’s rise for the United States: lessons from the China shock’, IFS Annual Lecture 2017, 22 June 2017. Baddeley, M (2006), ‘Convergence or Divergence? The Impacts of Globalisation on Growth and Inequality in Less Developed Countries’, International Review of Applied Economics, Vol. 3, pp. 391-410. Bolton, P (2012), ‘Education: Historical statistics’, House of Commons Library, Standard Note SN/SG/4252. Bresnahan, T and Trajtenberg, M (1995), ‘General purposes technologies ‘Engines of growth’?’, Journal of Econometrics, Vol. 65, No. 1, pp. 83-108. Broadberry, S and Wallis, J (2017), ‘Growing, Shrinking, and Long Run Economic Performance: Historical Perspectives On Economic Development’, NBER Working Paper, No. 23343. Brynjolfsson, E and McAfee, A (2014), The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, W. W. Norton & Company. Brynjolfsson, E, Rock, D and Syverson, C (2017), ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox: A Clash of Expectations and Statistics’, NBER Working Paper, No. 24001. Bughin, J et al (2017), ‘Artificial Intelligence – The Next Digital Frontier?’, McKinsey Global Institute Discussion Paper.

One may have expected that gap to close rapidly. Even today, however, only around four-fifths of small firms have a website. E-commerce is another technology that has arguably been surprisingly slow to propagate through the UK economy. In 2016, over 80% of UK individuals ordered goods or services online, more than any other OECD country. One may have expected that to have been mirrored by a large share of UK businesses selling online. In practice, the UK is only marginally above the OECD average. And between 2009 and 2016, the share of UK businesses making e-commerce sales increased by only 6pp, from 17% to 23%. 71  Swinney (2018), Giles (2018). Schneider (2018). Haldane (2017), Jacobs et al (2017), Swinney (2018), for instance. 74 OECD data. 72 73  20  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  20  If the story, then, is one of diffusion dynamics being more sluggish in the UK than elsewhere, what might be done to improve matters? Institutions, and within that universities, may well have a role to play. At present, a relatively small sub-set of the UK’s universities operate as innovation hubs. They conduct world-leading research using world-leading researchers. And, in an increasing number of cases, they are doing so in tandem with businesses in spin-off science parks, acting as incubators of innovation.
Fundamental to the growth of internet banking over the years is the confidence which the public has in its convenience and security. This is something that we cannot take for granted and must be continuously preserved. Advancement in technology and innovation has resulted in greater consumer convenience and enhanced efficiency. However, the same technology and innovation have also created new methods of perpetrating fraud that could be executed faster and with greater reach. Cyber criminals have been active ever since the advent of the internet, and are constantly finding new ways to defraud innocent victims. Safety and security of transactions in the banking system is fundamental in ensuring consumer confidence. Hence, an important function and responsibility of the Central Bank is to ensure online transactions can be made in a safe and efficient manner in the economy, in the pursuit of monetary and financial stability objectives. The need for constant vigilance & cooperation This fight that the banks are launching today is something that requires the support of all parties. We are aware of the creative ways in which criminals have attempted to deceive customers over the years and measures were required to be taken by the banks to protect the customers. While it is good to know that banks have played their roles in investing in robust security systems, they must also ensure that customers play their part in protecting their own assets and savings. The reminder and greater awareness from the Banks through this campaign is timely.

Encik Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya: Preserving the safety and security of Malaysia’s banking system Speech by Mr Encik Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the launch of the e-Banking Fraud Awareness Campaign, Kuala Lumpur, 15 January 2013. *  *  *  It is my pleasure and honour to be invited to launch this joint e-Banking fraud awareness campaign. I would like to thank the Association of Banks in Malaysia for this invitation and the coordinated efforts in undertaking this important awareness campaign. A significant initiative This campaign is indeed a very important initiative for the banking industry in Malaysia. This is the first time that all banks have come together in a concerted effort to help create greater awareness of online fraud with the cooperation of CyberSecurity and the Police Force. This is to be lauded as all stakeholders have a role to play in preserving the safety and security of the banking system. Maintaining confidence in online banking services Online transactions have been growing at a rapid pace over the years. Over the last decade, the use of electronic payments has increased at an average annual growth of 23.4%. In 2012, Malaysian households and businesses performed more than 300 million financial transactions with a value close to RM15 trillion via electronic channels comprising mainly funds transfers, bill payments, top-up for prepaid cards, purchases of phone cards and payments for investments in the capital market. Among the electronic channels, internet banking is the most popular.