samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
While we have expanded the regulatory scope to address emerging risks in payment developments, regulations are also right-sized to the risks posed. 11. First: As individual e-wallets, how do we keep them safe to use ? When we look at ewallets, we find that they face very similar risks as digital banking products. Firstly, as online services, both are dependent on technology and face cyber risk – so MAS expects them to manage these technology and cyber risks well. Second, they both hold retail customer monies, so they need to safeguard these monies. The differences however, are that an e-wallet is used for day-to-day payments, and so needs to be very liquid to meet customer demands, and ewallet issuers don’t give loans with the float. So it’s important to right-size our regulations to their business model, and not to stifle innovation by loading them with bank-like requirements. Taking these into account, MAS sets out proportionately simple options for e-wallets to safeguard customer monies, for example, holding it as a deposit with a bank. MAS may also prescribe further safeguarding measures in liquid and low-risk assets. Second: Collectively, how do we manage risks that e-wallets pose to the financial system? Our role as central banks is to protect the stability of, and confidence in, the financial 12.  system. To achieve this, we need to develop regulations that, while addressing key risks, do not obstruct the industry developments.

I have mentioned his work outside the academic work to emphasize his extended experience and wholesome view on Europe and the Euro Area. And now, a few considerations about the Euro Area and Romania in the European context: The European financial environment has faced the need for thorough reforms. The financial crisis and the difficulties within the Euro zone have led to rethinking the assumptions behind the Euro zone governance and the links between the European Union’s euro and non-euro member countries. The National Bank of Romania maintains a deep interest in reforms of the EU governance that enhance its strength and resilience, in regional cohesion, nominal and real economic convergence, for the larger objective of Euro currency adoption and Euro Area accession. Euro area accession represents a strategic target for Romania, which needs a healthy economy in order to join it on favorable terms. However, we are facing great challenges with respect to the functioning of the Euro Area and the European Union in general. The euro area is an evolving target, one that changes and transforms overtime and, therefore, we are all asking ourselves what the Euro Area’s future will look like and what we are heading to. Romania can and should play a role in the ongoing debate on the future of the EU and even of the euro area. In this context, I am grateful to André for the opportunity to facilitate this exchange of ideas.
Ravi Menon: MAS’ Annual Report 2014/15 Remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at MAS’ Annual Report 2014/15 Media Conference, Singapore, 21 July 2015. *  *  *  1. Highlight six areas. •  Economic growth – weaker than expected but not likely to deteriorate further  •  Inflation – coming in at lower half of forecast range  •  Monetary policy – considerations driving recent decisions  •  MAS’ financial performance – stable investment gains amidst volatile currency translation effects  •  Consumer initiatives – helping Singaporeans manage their finances  •  Financial centre development – broad-based growth across all segments  Economic growth Economy clearly lost some momentum in Q2 2. Real GDP contracted by 4.6% in Q2 on QoQ SAA basis  •  Trade-related industries declined, dragged down by weakness in pharmaceuticals, marine & offshore engineering, and electronics. •  Domestic-oriented industries pulled back after strong performance in Q1. But growth momentum not expected to deteriorate further in H2 3. First, global and regional economic recovery remains broadly intact – should provide support for Singapore’s outward-oriented sectors. •  US economy has regained momentum. o  o o •  PMI readings show manufacturing and services sectors expanding. Consumer spending should be buttressed by strengthening labour market. In China, picture is mixed. o  •  Contraction in Q1 largely weather-induced. Excess capacity has been weighing on production.

•  Individuals purchasing property are constrained on their total debt service ratio. 36. MAS announced new unsecured credit rules two years ago. •  FIs will not be allowed to grant further unsecured credit to borrower whose aggregate unsecured debt exceeds borrowing limit for 3 consecutive months. •  This limit has been set at 24 times borrower’s monthly income, and will be lowered to 18 times from 1 Jun 2017 and 12 times from 1 Jun 2019. 37. Vast majority of Singaporeans manage their debt well. •  Less than 2% of unsecured credit users affected by industry-wide borrowing limit. •  Nonetheless, this is about 22,000 borrowers who need help to manage down their debt. There are measures to help unsecured borrowers pay down their debts 38. Banks have worked with Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS) to develop a new Repayment Assistance Scheme (RAS). •  Convenient one-stop solution for borrower to work out centralised repayment solution with creditors. •  Lower interest rate of 5% p.a. over repayment period of 8 years for debt in excess of 12 times a borrower’s monthly income. Second consumer initiative: facilitate retail access to simple, low cost investment products 39. Last year I spoke about how MAS was working to improve savings and investment options for retail consumers. Made progress on three fronts. •  introduced Savings Bonds for flexible risk-free returns  •  facilitated access to $ corporate bonds for stable, long-term returns  •  expanded ETF options for diversified equity returns  40.
When the Swedish currency depreciated, the borrowers could not repay the higher loan values because their revenue stream was in local currency. The banks believed themselves to be hedged against the foreign exchange risk since they were funded in the currency of the loans given, but they failed to see the corresponding increased credit risk. Other risks were less prominent in the Swedish crisis but, in my opinion, will be of increasing importance to banks all over the world. Among those are operational risks. Several recent financial debacles, such as the Baring crisis, were due to operational risk. Even though the Y2K problem was successfully managed, the huge computer systems of banks could cause large losses if technical or other failures occur. Another risk, which in my mind will become increasingly important, may be called “strategic risk”. The financial market in most countries is highly competitive. In order to survive and prosper, banks must take bold decisions on new activities, new establishments, mergers, technological investments and so on. Decisions like these have to be taken, but should they go wrong, banks may suffer large losses and may even go bankrupt. To handle these and other risks, internal controls and internal audit systems are becoming increasingly important. The huge mass of information in modern banking makes it impossible for supervisors to monitor individual transactions.

Either new capital must be put into the bank before the transfer of assets or it must be injected into the AMC when the real value of its assets becomes obvious to everyone. Putting the money straight into the bank speeds up the restructuring process. 5  BIS Review 66/2000  Consolidated supervisory authorities I mentioned that supervision should be conducted on a consolidated basis, covering activities in different financial and non-financial sectors. Should also the organisation of the supervisory authority be “consolidated”? Several countries, including the UK, Korea, Australia and others have recently moved in the direction of creating an “FSA” which is responsible for the supervision of banks, securities markets and insurance. In Sweden, we have had an FSA since 1990. Is such a consolidation necessary and useful in all countries? In my view, the optimal structure of the supervisory authority depends on the structure of the individual country. In many countries, banks conduct the most important financial activities while securities markets are less important. Here at least bank supervision must be independent, have adequate resources and skilled staff. This is crucial. In many countries, bank supervision is a part of the central bank. This has benefited bank supervision because the central bank usually has legal independence, adequate resources and can attract qualified staff. Combining bank supervision with securities and insurance supervision will probably imply that supervision will move outside the central bank, since securities and insurance supervision is not normally a task of central banks. In this sense, bank supervision may become weaker.
That means that the Bank has to supply excess reserves to the system in aggregate, such that no firm has any incentive to pay more than  7  4  And the OSF Deposit Facility rate was set to zero. BIS central bankers’ speeches  Bank Rate for the marginal unit of reserves. In that world, banks’ incentives to trade with one another in the overnight markets are largely diminished. A third model for implementing monetary policy is the “zero corridor” system. In this case there would be no reserves targets and banks could both lend to and borrow from the Bank in unlimited amounts at Bank Rate every day. Although short term market interest rates should always equal Bank Rate precisely, this system has several drawbacks. First, banks would never need to transact with each other; they simply transact with the central bank via the OSFs: there would be little or no commercial overnight interbank money market. That would be unwelcome. For example, the information the Bank deduces from movements in overnight market interest rates would be lost. It might also disrupt functioning of longer-term money markets, given implicit links to the overnight market. Second, if the Bank can always be relied upon to meet daily liquidity needs, then commercial banks have less incentive to actively manage their liquidity. And the Bank would be unable to distinguish between banks using the OSFs to manage their day-to-day liquidity buffers, and those facing more fundamental shocks.

As a consequence, the stock of reserves increased and exceeded the level the banks would have needed to hit the targets they would have chosen voluntarily. Because banks then had no control over the rate of expansion of reserves, the system of reserves averaging was suspended. Banks were instead remunerated at Bank Rate on any level of reserves.7 That means that there is no incentive for any commercial bank to lend in the market at less than Bank Rate. As a result, the current system should set a “floor” on money market rates, at Bank Rate (Chart 4). Similar mechanisms are currently employed by the Federal Reserve in the US, and the Swedish Riksbank. In principle, banks could have continued to set monthly targets and – to the extent that the MPC’s asset purchases supplied reserves in excess of these targets – the Bank could have borrowed them back through OMOs. But the Bank judged it better not to borrow reserves in increasingly large quantities at the same time as the purchase programme grew. While this is an easy and effective way of implementing monetary policy at the moment, there are drawbacks to this “floor” system. For example, in order to ensure overnight rates settle at Bank Rate, the Bank’s supply curve needs to intersect the commercial banks’ demand curve where it is infinitely elastic.
2001 = 100 150  Norges Bank Economic perspectives 15 february 2018  150  Five percent most productive firms Other firms  140  140  130  130  120  120  110  110  100  100  90 2001  2003  2005  2007  2009  2011  90 2013  1) Defined as firms in sectors 45 – 82 (excluding 64 – 68) in NACE Rev. 2. Source: OECD  In the past decade, the fallout from the financial crisis has probably had a dampening impact on productivity growth. Weak economic growth and heightened uncertainty have reduced businesses’ willingness to invest. In addition, banks in many countries held back on lending for a long period. This may have discouraged new entrants and slowed the replacement of outdated production equipment. The legacies of the financial crisis are now fading. Investment is picking up across countries. This could lift productivity ahead. But this will not materialise of its own accord. It is up to us to take advantage of the possibilities provided by technological innovation. Economic restructuring must continue. A flexible labour market, high education levels and a solid social safety net are preconditions for successful restructuring. In Norway, much of this is in place, but we too must be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances. In addition, nature has endowed us with advantages that it will be important to build on in the years to come.

This does not mean, however, that the situation will remain stable in the future. Were the general level of interest rates to rise, these funds could quickly flow elsewhere. Banks should therefore include these assumptions in their assessment and management of their interest rate risk. Furthermore, domestically focused banks should exercise greater caution in residential mortgage lending. When determining and applying their lending criteria with respect to loanto-value ratios, banks should bear in mind that the risks in the real estate market have increased. Moreover, when assessing the affordability for their borrowers, banks should be aware that mortgage rates can rise rapidly. The application of conservative lending criteria is important, on the one hand, as a precautionary measure for the banks themselves, in view of the prevailing risks in the market. On the other, a more prudent lending policy would help to counter a further build-up of imbalances. From a financial stability perspective, in the event of a further build-up of risks in the Swiss mortgage and real estate markets, it might prove necessary to take further regulatory measures. The SNB, for its part, will regularly assess whether an adjustment of the countercyclical capital buffer is necessary. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
I should note that insurance represents a very large part of the PRA’s activities – at the end of the financial year 2014/15 the PRA had around 550 front-line supervisors and risk specialists working on various deposit taking firms compared with over 300 on insurance firms. Most of the regulatory reforms that the PRA are implementing have not actually originated in the PRA itself. Rather, they have arisen from a variety of external sources. Some are UK initiatives: for example, the new Senior Managers Regime and Senior Insurance Managers Regime implement the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) and the structural reform of the major banks (ring-fencing) emerged from the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB, also known as the “Vickers Commission”). A number of key reforms are European initiatives such as the Solvency II regime for insurers. The banking capital regime, CRDIV, is a European implementation of agreements made in the global Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS). The development of international insurance standards is being driven by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) via the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS). The UK authorities, including the Bank of England and PRA, play a full part in negotiating these reforms, so I wouldn’t claim that they are entirely external, even though there are usually aspects of the final agreements which represent the middle ground in negotiations.

Even a simple leverage ratio requires some agreement as to what to include in each component (e.g. how to value derivatives for this purpose) and the details of an internationally agreed measure are still being negotiated: they are due to be decided in 2017. A harmonised EU-wide measure will then be implemented. In advance of that, the FPC in the UK have already decided on a requirement for major UK banks, and on 6 April 2015, the Government gave the FPC the power to set a leverage ratio by direction to the PRA. The initial ratio of capital to unweighted assets was chosen by the FPC to complement the risk-weighted capital framework and to be in line with the level endorsed by the BCBS. The precise requirements were calculated to be consistent with a minimum average risk weight of 35%. This gives a minimum leverage ratio of 3%, with addons for individual firms to reflect any systemic risk and counter-cyclical buffer requirements, at 35% of the relevant buffer rates. Details on what capital can be used to meet these requirements have also been specified. The FPC plan to extend the leverage ratio to all the remaining authorised banks, building societies and investment firms from 2018, subject to the outcome of the anticipated 2017 international agreement. Stress testing It can be difficult to set capital requirements to meet possible losses, without specifying the likely extent of future stress.
The programme hopes to develop banking customers who will make better informed financial decisions and be confident in exercising their rights. To facilitate recognition of the programme by the public, the consumer education programme has been given an identity and logo of its own. The programme is known as "BankingInfo" and will be implemented in phases and in a structured and incremental manner. Each phase of "Bankinginfo" will reach out to certain target groups to ultimately achieve its long-term goal of reaching out to all segments of the banking population. Consumers are not homogenous and the information to be transmitted will have to take into account the different needs and preferences. The level of awareness of this programme will be monitored with a view of improving the content and enhancing the mode of dissemination and communication of the information. In this first phase of the programme, the information will be disseminated to the public in the form of 12 information booklets and via the BankingInfo web-site. The areas covered include information on consumer banking products, information on new and innovative banking channels as well as educational information on aspects of banking and currency. It also includes information on Islamic banking, the Credit Bureau and the Malaysian currency and on Bank Negara Malaysia. All these booklets can be obtained from branches of the commercial banks and finance companies and can be accessed from the BankingInfo website. Ladies and Gentlemen, Today is just the first step forward in the consumer education programme.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Currently, consumers are not fully aware of the avenues for redress when they have complaints on the financial services being produced. In a survey undertaken by the consumer associations indicate that the level of awareness of the existence of the Banking Mediation Bureau was very low. The consumer education programme seeks to provide consumers with information on the avenues available to them if they have issues relating to the financial services or products they have acquired. Banking institutions are required to have a special unit to deal with complaints. Where this cannot be resolved, it can be referred to the Banking Mediation Bureau. In addition to the Banking Mediation Bureau, there is also the Unit in Bank Negara Malaysia. With the infrastructure in place, banking customers therefore have a number of channels to address grievances in a consultative and constructive manner. Ladies and Gentlemen, The existence of a single point of reference on retail banking products and services is expected to provide consumers with a fast and convenient way of looking for information and accelerate their learning curve. It is hoped that this one stop centre will improve financial literacy amongst the Malaysian banking population and create a more financially savvy population. This has prompted the development of a long term programme to promote consumer education in Malaysia. The primary objective of the programme is to raise the level of financial literacy among the Malaysian public.
Between 1990 and 1997, the annual flow to Asia alone was equivalent to around 25% of the affected countries’ aggregate GDP. This was a combination of bank lending and portfolio investments; 60% of the lending from international banks was shortterm. That capital moves from one part of the world to another if the yield is seen to be higher is, of course, positive in itself. The problem lay in the conditions for productive investments being less good than  had been hoped. Later, when the Asian economies ran into problems, the capital flows reversed and serious financial turbulence broke out. A further way of achieving a high return was to take increased risks by debt financing and complex financial instruments. This created a starting point for so-called highly leveraged institutions. Long Term Capital Management was one extreme example. International banks engaged in lending directly to countries where the returns were high. At the same time, they lent capital to hedge funds that invested in the same countries. In some cases, moreover, the banks owned shares directly in these funds. There are grounds for saying that risk-taking was high in many cases. The good profits created a culture of deceptive security and stimulated further risk-taking. To this can be added the false sense of security that the new mathematical models imparted. They were seen to function well under normal circumstances but failed to do so when they were most needed, i.e. in turbulent times.

FOMC Actions Against this backdrop, the FOMC has taken decisive actions to curb demand, restore balance to the economy, and bring inflation down. Last month, the FOMC raised the target range for the federal funds rate to 4-3/4 to 5 percent, its ninth consecutive increase. In its post-meeting statement, the FOMC said it "will closely monitor incoming information and assess the implications for monetary policy. "4  2/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  The Committee also said it "anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time." According to the median projections in the FOMC's March Summary of Economic Projections, the stance of monetary policy remains restrictive this year and next year.5 In addition, the FOMC said it will continue to reduce its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities, according to the framework announced last May.6  Economic Outlook Because of the lag between policy actions and their effects, it will take some time for the FOMC's actions to bring inflation down to our 2 percent target. With inflation expectations well anchored, I expect inflation to decline to around 3-1/4 percent this year, before moving to our longer-run goal over the next two years. Turning to GDP, the data flow for the first quarter indicates that the economy continues to expand at a solid pace.