samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We hope the White Paper that the HKMA is publishing today will encourage banks in Hong Kong to actively consider the challenges that can be solved with Regtech. We want to see banks embracing new technologies and proofs of concept, and ultimately adopting more Regtech solutions in the years ahead. 5/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  56. This is also an opportunity for the Regtech community to develop their solutions for the Hong Kong market. 57. I trust that our goals are crystal clear. We want to accelerate the adoption of Regtech in Hong Kong. And this will involve us working hand-in-hand with banks and the Regtech community, in order to realise our vision for Regtech 2025. 58. On that, I very much look forward to your support in our Regtech journey in the next few years. And I trust you would find the rest of the Fintech week both enjoyable and fruitful! Thank you very much! 6/6  BIS central bankers' speeches

In some instances, individuals rely absolutely for their future lifetime incomes on the continuity of their insurance cover. To achieve an appropriate level of policyholder protection, insurers must be, and be seen to be, safe and sound. I have said this before but I think it is worth reiterating. The PRA believes the UK industry is in a good position, having had the UK risk-based ICAS regime for around ten years. We are therefore not looking to use Solvency II as an opportunity to raise capital requirements across the board. We do, however, recognise and respect that Solvency II is a maximum-harmonising Directive with a key objective of promoting supervisory co-operation. The PRA is committed to upholding this valued objective and will implement the Directive as intended. We can’t and won’t gold plate. Our approach has been, and will continue to be, proportionate in our supervision. As a judgement-led, risk-based regulator, this principle is already part of the PRA approach. It is not the PRA’s role to make sure no insurer fails. However, we are concerned that any failure is orderly and manageable. We seek this in conjunction with appropriate policy holder protection. For example, when business models become challenged we may seek to secure manageable and orderly wind-down, as has been seen in the past in this sector. In fact, roughly one third of insurers authorised by the PRA are in some form of run-off. More than just a capital regime, Solvency II strengthens the linkage between capital and risk management.
This was the reason why Singapore had initiated the Asia-Middle East Dialogue (AMED). AMED would help to share developmental experience, promote greater understanding and serve as a bridge between the two regions. Before stepping down as Prime Minister, I stepped up Singapore's relations with the Middle East, and continue to do so in my present capacity. In the past three years, I have visited almost all the Middle Eastern and the Maghreb countries – Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, the Gulf States, Iran, Israel and the Palestinian Territories – to name a few. Trade and investment between Singapore and the Middle East have shot up. To date, Singapore companies have secured more than $ billion worth of projects. Funds from the Middle East managed in Singapore have increased to around $ billion. But there is room for greater growth. I have started a second round of visits to the Middle East, beginning with Abu Dhabi this year. I want to further strengthen Singapore's relations with them. Let me now turn to the theme of today's conference – integrating awqaf into the Islamic financial sector. I have dealt at some length on relations between Asia and the Middle East because I wanted to put this conference in a larger context. The evolution of awqaf and Islamic finance is in a sense about how Muslims are adapting traditional concepts to modern living and how Islamic finance is moving out of the Middle East into the rest of the world.

Banks in Hong Kong made great strides in BCP during the preparations for the onslaught of the Y2K bug. Although the onslaught never came, we were soon reminded of the importance of BCP by the 9-11 attack, which alerted us to the need for robustness in payment, clearing and settlement systems, among other things. Then the outbreak of SARS last year put the BCP capability of banks in Hong Kong to a real test. I am pleased to say that the contingency arrangements of banks - whether of a technical or personnel nature - performed very well during that difficult time. Nevertheless, the recurrence of disasters and their unpredictable nature should always be a feature of BCP and its continuous review. Indeed, the probability of occurrence of these events seems to have increased, along with heightened geo-political tension and the trend of globalisation, not just of trade and markets but also of terrorism and disease. BIS Review 37/2004  3  A further area that falls broadly under technology risk comes from outsourcing. Continuing pressure on profitability will no doubt result in more banks seeking to outsource their operations to lower-cost centres outside of Hong Kong. This will in turn give rise to additional operational risks for banks, including the risks of service outage and leakage of confidential customer data.
Regarding the propagation of the relative price shocks to the overall economy – or secondround effects – one important factor is significantly related with the sensitivity of inflation  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  expectations to the short-term behavior and the flexibility of real wages. It is possible that, if the economy sustains its dynamism beyond its installed capacity, it may foster a greater propagation of these shocks to other prices and to labor costs, heightening its inflationary effects. As I said before, the baseline scenario assumes that gaps will remain closed over the projection horizon, but the possibility remains that output and demand grow above forecasts, thus exceeding the normal use of the economy’s productive capacity and exacerbating inflationary pressures. Conversely, increased prices of fuels and other products affect the consumers’ disposable income and, thereby, can become a factor moderating expenditures in other goods and services. In the international scenario, financial tensions remain in some European countries and global imbalances are far from being resolved. There are also doubts regarding how tight output gaps are and how strong are inflationary pressures in some emerging economies, especially in Asia, and how will policy makers and investors respond to the signs of higher inflation that are appearing. Considering the experience of 2007–2008, this might trigger a monetary policy reaction that could cause a more pronounced slowdown in the demand of emerging economies, with important consequences on world growth and commodity prices.

Importantly, this sustained undershoot of the inflation target is likely to be a recurring dilemma for the Fed and central banks in Japan and Europe that have had similar experiences over the past decade. This problem of inflation running chronically below the target stems in part from the limited ability of central banks to offset economic downturns due to the lower bound on interest rates in a low-neutral-rate environment.7  Implications for the Monetary Policy Framework The risk of the inflation expectations anchor slipping toward shore calls for a reassessment of the dominant inflation targeting framework.8 A number of alternative frameworks and strategies have been proposed that hold the promise of better achieving the inflation goal and holding fast the inflation anchor. 9 In this regard, I am very pleased that the Federal Reserve is undertaking a review of our policy framework this year, a topic that Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Clarida will discuss in his lunch remarks today. In summary, the Phillips curve is alive and well. I wholeheartedly agree with the authors that we 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  must not be complacent about inflation expectations becoming unmoored, whether at too high or too low a level. 1  See John C. Williams, Inflation Persistence in an Era of Well-Anchored Inflation Expectations, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter 2006–27, October 13, 2006. 2 See More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors, Jackson Hole Economic Symposium  Conference Proceedings; Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 2018.
There are still highly profitable sectors and businesses with plenty of scope for expansion, so firms have to be able to refocus their activity flexibly and to set up new companies without hindrances in a framework of competition. Moreover, the cyclical weakness will require firms to follow a moderate pricing policy and reduce mark-ups, which would be easier to achieve if competitive pressure were to increase in the sectors where it is weakest. Second, faced with the inevitable fall in domestic demand, firms have no alternative but to turn to foreign markets. It is important to realise that, compared with the foreseeably low growth of national demand in the next few quarters, Spain’s export markets may grow at relatively high rates in the coming years. In 2008 Q2, for example, national demand grew by 1.4% in year-on-year terms, while goods and services exports rose by nearly three times that figure. For this reason, efforts to boost the internationalisation of Spanish firms must be maintained. Compared with the 46 million people comprising the Spanish market, the inhabitants of the euro area countries number 320 million and the European single market consists of nearly 500 million. Note that Spain’s share of goods exports in world trade is still below its share of world production. Also, Spain sends a smaller fraction of its exports to the emerging economies (whose imports are more dynamic) than the other EU countries.

For all these reasons, it is clear that there is no room for complacency and that institutions must act to achieve tighter cost control and to rationalise their procedures. Against a background of rising doubtful assets it seems essential to build up both the amount and quality of capital and to establish sound risk control mechanisms. Lastly, institutions should continuously carry out stress testing and develop contingency plans to anticipate what line of action to take in the face of different market situations. Regarding the supervisor, I believe there has been widespread recognition of the reliability and quality of Spanish banking supervision. Therefore this work should continue to cultivate a close relationship and permanent contact with institutions, but without relaxing the demands made of them. The last agent to which I wish to devote attention is households. In the current circumstances it is inevitable that households should regard the future with greater uncertainty and restrict their spending, stepping up their saving and reducing their level of indebtedness. The behaviour of households will be influenced by whether or not they are indebted and, if so, the weight of this debt burden on their current income. In the case of the more heavily indebted households (in proportion to income), the picture is more complicated since, to the prevailing uncertainty about the economic outlook may be added the tightening of financing conditions, which is largely a result of the financial turmoil.
Ravi Menon: Economic dynamism amidst demographic change Transcript of remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the IPS Singapore Perspectives 2018, Singapore, 22 January 2018. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I want to first thank IPS for the opportunity to share my thoughts with this large audience. I would also like to commend IPS for convening a conference on what is an important, existential topic: the implications of demographic change. I will focus my presentation on the economic implications of demographic change: what it means for economic growth and economic dynamism. The two are different. My presentation will centre around two broad themes. First, I will describe our demographic trilemma – the constraints and the choices we need to make. Second, I would like to argue that demographics is not destiny – why economic dynamism is not a numbers game and how we can remain dynamic amidst this demographic challenge. 1 / 17  BIS central bankers' speeches  Let’s start with the total fertility rate, or TFR. By the way, we must be one of the few countries in the world where most people know what TFR stands for! It is indeed an existential issue for us. The TFR is the starting point of all demographic analysis. Singapore has had a sustained decline in its TFR. Our TFR fell from around 1.8 in the 1980s (which is already below the replacement level of 2.1) to about 1.3 in the early 2000s.

The decentralised set-up of the Eurosystem - with the ECB representing the hub of the system and the national central bank its spokes - has contributed to the acceptance of the euro as the single currency of more than 300 million citizens, as in particular the national central banks are well-equipped, in terms of knowledge of language and national backgrounds, to communicate to the general public. Contrary to the public perception about other European institutions, the Eurosystem is being perceived as relatively close to the heart of the public. I am very pleased to chair tomorrow’s meeting of the Governing Council here in Rome. The fact that the Governing Council meets in Rome is symbolic, in many aspects. First, Rome is regarded as the cradle of the European-Christian civilisation, as we know it nowadays. The Roman Empire was the first attempt to create a unified Europe. Although this period in history has greatly contributed to the development of the European continent, this experience has also made clear that Europe cannot be unified by means of force, with some nations or peoples subordinated to others. Unfortunately, this was a lesson, which Europe had to learn the hard way. It took us almost 2,000 years to realise that the continuous perils of war and oppression had to end.
The decline in traditional exports will then persist. Sooner or later, the oil market will also feel the effects of the downturn and oil prices will decline. If the world economy experiences prolonged stagnation and the krone remains firm, a markedly lower interest rate will contribute to a weakening of the krone and mitigate the effects for Norway. On the other hand, any fiscal slippage will contribute to maintaining a strong krone. A precondition for countering a possible downturn by means of monetary policy easing is slower growth in labour costs. Monetary policy cannot prevent an increase in unemployment that is caused by a significantly higher rate of growth in labour costs in Norway compared with other countries. A stagnating global economy has changed the domestic inflation outlook in recent months. World stock markets have continued to decline. It does not appear that interest rates in the US and Europe will increase in the near future. They may even be reduced further before the recovery starts. In Norway, the interest rate has also been reduced. At the same time, fiscal policy is stimulating activity, partly through tax reductions and growth in government allocations. In addition, state finances weaken when the economy shows little growth and unemployment rises. As a result of the strong krone, however, overall economic policy is tight. With an equally tight policy ahead, inflation would probably have been lower than the inflation target. A gradual easing of monetary policy would thus seem appropriate. Does the inflation target promote stability?

Between 2004 and 2009, this expanded at an annual average of 5.3%. On the other hand, government investment remained broadly unchanged during this period and declined in the last two years, in part because actual outlays often fell short of targets. The dual challenge of maintaining a high level of investment spending while reducing the budget deficit, therefore, implies that it is recurrent expenditures that must be cut. Progress has already been made by reducing subsidies, through the privatisation of the shipyard and by aligning utility rates more closely to production costs. For next year, however, while an increase of less than 1% in recurrent spending is planned, few specific cuts have been identified. In this context, the latest Annual Report of the National Audit Office suggests there is ample scope for controlling expenditures more effectively and for improving revenue collection. 13 While taxpayers have every right to expect value for their money, a substantial, durable fiscal correction requires a fundamental reappraisal of the role of the state in providing services. The need to prioritize expenditure programmes has not been fully addressed. As a result, the most difficult challenges, such as how to ensure sustainable funding for tertiary education, pensions and health services, remain to be tackled. 14 Domestic consumption must return to a sustainable level. It is an inevitable adjustment for economies like ours that have lived beyond their means for far too long.
As a result, in order to protect their margins banks may not reduce the rate they charge on lending, thus dampening the transmission of monetary policy. The MPC was acutely aware of this when it decided at the beginning of this month to reduce Bank Rate to 0.25%. In order to reinforce the transmission of this change we also launched a Term Funding Scheme (TFS) through which central bank reserves will be lent to banks and building societies for four years. Should they maintain their lending to the real economy, the rate they will pay over this period will be Bank Rate. For each 1% that net lending by an institution falls, the cost of TFS funding will rise by 5bps to a maximum of 25bps. By tethering banks’ term funding costs more closely to our official policy rate, this should create the capacity for them to pass the reduction in that rate through to households and businesses, thus strengthening the transmission to the real economy. Since the MPC’s decision we have published further documentation, technical detail and guidelines for firms considering using this facility. We are now open to applications, and the scheme will be available to be drawn upon from the middle of September. Conclusion Let me summarise. Darell and Arvind’s paper draws attention to some very important issues, namely the decrease in competitive forces and increase in frictions in money markets, which work to reduce the pass-through efficiency of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy setting.

And the behaviour of the index of dispersion of money market rates that they have created provides evidence that these developments are at least in part due to post-crisis changes in the regulatory framework. Taking into account the improved resilience of the financial system, these regulatory changes are net beneficial to society, so they are not going to be rolled back. However, policymakers can and should be willing to attenuate some of their unintended consequences, and be open to challenge on their design. As participants in money markets, central banks should be open to new ways to enhance pass-through efficiency by showing flexibility in their implementation of monetary policy. The Fed’s RRP does this by making a risk-free asset available to a wider range of counterparties  5  SONIA is the weighted average of unsecured brokered transactions, and it is the main reference rate in OIS contracts. Current daily volumes are around £ down from around £ before the financial crisis. In July 2015 the Bank announced its plans to reform SONIA, including by broadening its coverage to encompass overnight unsecured transactions negotiated bilaterally aswell as those arranged via brokers. For more information see http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/Pages/benchmarks/soniareform.aspx. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  than would ordinarily be the case. And the Bank of England’s recently launched TFS will help the pass-through of very low levels of Bank Rate to the rates faced by households and businesses in the real economy.
Components of the CPIF with the lowest volatility 1995-2019 Sub-index of the CPIF Standard Average  Weight  deviation Rent  1.0  1.9  9.6  Alcohol, restaurant visits  1.2  2.3  1.0  Personal hygiene (services)  1.3  3.3  1.8  Garage costs  1.3  2.1  0.2  Water and sewerage, refuse collection,  1.3  2.7  1.0  Food (outside the home)  1.4  2.6  5.4  Lottery, pools  20  1.4  1.3  1.1  Alcohol, purchased in store  1.5  1.1  2.1  Fizzy drinks, light beer  1.5  0.9  0.8  Entertainment and recreation  1.6  2.0  3.5  Personal hygiene (goods)  1.7  1.0  1.3  Capital stock 21  1.9  4.6  3.3  Funeral, home insurance, bank, education  2.0  2.8  2.6  Diverse leisure goods  2.0  0.3  0.5  Furniture, carpeting and lighting  2.0  0.2  2.0  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank. Note. The calculations are made using monthly data expressed an annual percentage change. The weights for all groups included in the calculation add up to 100. Figure 6 shows the fifteen components with the highest volatility according to the procedure above, aggregated into an index (see dark blue line). The total weight of these goods and services in the CPIF is close to 17 per cent.

The new method, where one follows the prices on a top list for books sold, probably gives greater variations than the old method where one followed the prices on a number of indicator books. The top list changes every month, while the indicator list changed less often. Sales are now captured to a greater extent than before. 27 Foreign air travel was not included in Table 1, but a new method of measuring prices has contributed to a new seasonal pattern with a higher volatility in recent years. 14 [19]  Underlying measures and actual monetary policy The different measures of underlying inflation give us the opportunity to approach the existing data and view it from different angles. But in the next step, the measures will be used by policymakers responsible for monetary policy. Here a conflict arises between on the one hand bringing forward various underlying measures and on the other hand being clear and transparent about the objective of monetary policy. The conflict become particularly clear if one chooses to use measures of underlying inflation that systematically deviate from the actual rate of inflation. Or, in other words, the poorer the measure of underlying measure of inflation, the greater the communication challenges. I would say that we have seen clear examples of this conflict in recent years: In June 2018, analysts at Handelsbanken Capital Markets considered it necessary to deny that the Riksbank had changed its target variable in a newsletter.