samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
There is much discussion on the risks of trade protectionism as a consequence of the crisis, but the risks of financial protectionism are at least as significant and probably more evident. For instance, national rescue plans to address the financial crisis may have jeopardised the level playing field that must underpin cross-country financial flows. In a similar vein, capital controls could induce  BIS Review 172/2010  3  market segmentation and trigger a spiral which would erode some of the progress achieved in financial integration over the past decades. Let me be more specific on banking flows and the lessons from the global financial crisis. The crisis has emphasised the vulnerability of cross-country banking flows, and how quickly they may retrench in times of stress. Such retrenchment was an important transmission channel of financial strain during the global financial crisis. However, not all banks behaved equally; lending by some proved more resilient than others. Recent research 1 on the performance of cross-border lending to emerging markets during the recent crisis has yielded a number of interesting conclusions. Among them, that lending by Spanish banks to Latin America was more resilient than lending by other international banks, and that by behaving like domestic banks they did not contribute to the impact of foreign shocks on credit and interest rates. The relative stability of Spanish banking flows has to do with both the banking business model and the quality of supervision.

Spanish banks in Latin America have traditionally operated under a subsidiary model, whereby they are financially autonomous from the head office and they have to comply with the host country’s capital requirements and deposit insurance schemes. In turn, supervisory responsibility is shared between the host country and the home country supervisors. Another factor of resilience behind the business model of Spanish banks in Latin America is their focus on retail banking, which tends to be less volatile and more closely linked to the real economy than wholesale or investment banking. Both the emphasis on retail banking and the principle of financial autonomy of the subsidiaries induce banks to fund themselves primarily through the deposit base in the host country. This reliance on domestic funding has favoured “business as usual” even if the home country was enduring financial stress, and has helped to reduce the financial vulnerability of the host country by mitigating the exposure to external flows. I am aware that even if the subsidiary model has proved its resilience during the crisis, it may involve some costs in terms of liquidity management, and that alternative banking models may have their virtues depending on the nature of the banking business. With due attention to limiting financial vulnerabilities, the question of models for cross-border banking has to be addressed with the necessary flexibility.
Encik Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya: Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism Welcoming remarks by Mr Encik Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the ASEAN Regional Bank Supervision Workshop on “Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism”, Kuala Lumpur, 3 March 2015. *  *  *  Welcome to Malaysia. I hope you have had a pleasant journey travelling to KL and managed to have a good rest. I also hope that the facilities being offered here at our Lanai Kijang are adequate to meet your expectations. It is a great honour for Bank Negara Malaysia to host and co-organise the ASEAN Regional Bank Supervision Workshop on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the World Bank for formulating the programme and organising this workshop and our utmost gratitude to the Government of Canada for the generous financial support that has made the hosting and organizing of this course possible. As a country that has just gone through its on-site mutual evaluation process, we have seen that the role of supervision is very important in the development of a country’s AML/CFT regime. There is critical need for the integration between AML/CFT, prudential and business conduct supervision as well as between those supervisors and the law enforcement authorities. These inter-linkages prove to us that collective effort is key in combating ML/TF effectively.

The number of guarantees approved during the period amounted to 1,668 with a total value of Rls 644 million against loans to the tune of Rls1.6 billion granted by banks under the umbrella of the program, which benefited about 1,113 small and medium enterprises. This is in addition to loans provided by the Saudi Credit and Savings Bank, for financing young people and small enterprises, as well as the Centennial Fund, and Abdul Latif Jameel’s “Finance Program” that provides material support for youth’s projects and training courses. Dear audience, In conclusion, I wish to emphasize that the status of small and medium enterprises in the Kingdom still needs a lot of care and an appropriate environment to perform their required roles in the economy, especially in the field of Saudization of jobs. This important symposium may, hopefully, discuss this topic from its different aspects and provide the necessary recommendations to assist competent authorities in making appropriate decisions for this important sector. Thank you all for listening and wish you success. BIS Review 171/2010  3
But a common safe asset would have additional benefits. It would contribute to weakening the link between bank and sovereign risks, preventing capital movements towards safe assets that might prove destabilising at times of financial tension. And, more generally, it would promote the fairer provision of more stable safe assets for the euro area as a whole. Conclusion In short, the global economic situation, and that of the euro area in particular, has recently continued to weaken, weighed down – among other factors – by adverse international trade developments. Against this background, some of the main risks that have loomed for several quarters over the area’s growth prospects have increased and are denting the euro area economy. As I stated earlier, the Eurozone is particularly sensitive to the course of international trade and is directly exposed to the uncertainty Brexit is causing. Both actual and projected inflation rates have held persistently below the ECB’s objective. Against this backdrop, the ECB Governing Council has underscored its determination to act if the medium-term inflation outlook remains below-target, adjusting all its instruments appropriately. In parallel, improving the workings of the euro area before any future crisis should occur is a pressing concern.

I will then highlight the financial risks that go hand-in-hand with the changes underway (II). Finally, I would like to emphasise that a safe move towards a more diversified intermediation model as we see it developing cannot be achieved without further financial integration at European level. To that end, advancing the European regulatory agenda is of prime importance (III). 1. From  bank-centric  financial  intermediation  towards  unbundled  financial  intermediation in the digital era To date, in Europe, we have been accustomed to a bank-centric intermediation model. However, this model is being increasingly challenged by new players emerging in the digital era, the so-called Fintechs and Bigtechs, as well as by the growing weight of the asset management industry. We thus need to prepare to new intermediation models, which can be classified in four categories:  2/9  -  The traditional banking intermediation model for certain financial services, like mortgages;  -  A non-bank financial intermediation model (formerly known as “shadow banking”) performed by the asset management industry, to finance in particular the corporate sector;  -  A re-intermediated model, in which Fintechs and Bigtechs intermediate the banks, on the retail segment in particular;  -  And a fully disintermediated model supported by the blockchain and the peer-to-peer economies. Let me first discuss the new models stemming from the digital era (A) and I’ll come back afterwards to asset management (B).
The interest rate reductions since December 2002 reflected a change in the inflation outlook. The cuts were made in response to a weaker global economy and a sharp reduction in interest rates in other countries. In addition, Norway’s business sector has clearly felt the effects of the high level of costs and the strong krone exchange rate. The public sector has also had to scale back its activities following last year’s wage settlement. The sluggish prospects both abroad and at home have in turn influenced the Norwegian labour market and the outlook for wage and price inflation in the years ahead. The interest rate reductions this summer were carried out in larger steps than what has been customary. They were important in order to prevent inflation expectations from taking hold at too low a level. The interest rate cuts, which have also brought real interest rates down to a historically low level, will also contribute to a pick-up in growth in the economy. Relationship between short-term and long-term interest rates Interest rates with a long maturity may be viewed as a sequence of expected short-term interest rates at different future dates. Changes in expectations concerning Norges Bank’s future monetary policy may therefore influence interest rates with a maturity in excess of 1-2 months. Norges Bank’s mandate for monetary policy is well known in the market.

Different measures paint slightly different pictures, but all of the measures are above the inflation target. Thirdly, cost pressures have  1  For a review of current research see, for example, Blinder, A., ”Making Monetary Policy by Committee”, an essay presented at the conference ”International Experience with the Conduct of Monetary Policy Under Inflation Targeting”, 22-23 July, 2008, Bank of Canada. 2  See, for example, Blinder, A. and J. Morgan, ”Are Two Heads Better than One? An Experimental Analysis of Group versus Individual Decision Making”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 37, 2005, 789-811. 2  BIS Review 113/2008  increased. This is largely related to the fact that growth in productivity has been surprisingly weak for some time. The assessment made by the majority was that an increase was needed to prevent price rises for energy and food from spreading to other areas – to prevent the high level of inflation from becoming entrenched. The increase is expected to help bring inflation back to a level close to the target within a couple of years. Resource utilisation is also expected to fall but to be roughly normal at the end of the forecast period. At the same time as the repo rate was increased, the repo rate path for the period ahead was adjusted downwards compared to the decision taken in July. This is partly because growth has slowed down more than expected in Sweden and abroad and partly because the price of oil and the prices of other commodities have fallen.
How should we view financial bubbles, what causes them and what can we do about them? What drove the latest bubble, what can we learn from it and what is needed more generally to make stock markets function more efficient? BIS Review 50/2002  1  Nothing new about periods of undue optimism One important lesson is that in a deregulated world, waves of excessive due optimism can arise and result in pronounced financial cycles. In the 1990s there were several periods of financial turbulence. One was Sweden’s own bank and currency crisis about a decade ago. At the same time there were problems in other countries and turbulence in the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). That was followed by the crises in Asia and Mexico, the problems with the major hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, Russia’s suspension of payments, the IT bubble and, most recently, the difficulties in Latin America. Further back, there have likewise been periods of excessive optimism and financial crises. Here, briefly, are the most spectacular items in Sweden’s economic history. •  The first real financial crisis in Sweden occurred back in 1857. It mainly involved the real estate market and obliged the government to support the banking system for the second time in our history. The first occasion had been in 1668, when the Palmstruch Bank was taken over by parliament and ultimately became what we now call the Riksbank.

BIS Review 50/2002  5
Its level of linguistic complexity is 5 years lower than the Inflation Report, making it accessible to around 14 million more people, or around a quarter of the adult population. A third example is the Bank’s flagship publication, the Inflation Report. In November, the Bank for the first time published the Report in three layers: Layer 3 was the usual “50 page, 50 chart” version; Layer 2 was the “1-2 page, 1-2 chart” version; and Layer 1 was the “1 line, 1 chart” version. With a level of complexity more than 6 years below Layer 3, Layers 1 and 2 in principle could reach an extra 21 million people. Early evidence suggests this layering has helped in reaching a broader audience. Website hits on the November Inflation Report were double the average from earlier quarters. These extra hits were entirely accounted for by Layers 1 and 2, while Layer 3 hits were essentially unchanged. This suggests that layering has enabled the MPC to reach a new, wider audience without cannibalising its existing audience. 42  Producing simplified material, like layering, is neither a short cut nor an easy option. Nor is it simply an act of communication. Message simplification is an act of policy. As such, simplified messages need to be agreed and signed-off by policy committees – as were the Layer 1 and 2 messages in the Bank’s November Inflation Report. They are another example of the Marshall McLuhan maxim of the medium becoming the message.

30  Debt, default and dependency on high-cost credit are also a recipe for another d – depression. Debt and financial illiteracy affect physical and mental health. without to have a common mental health disorder. 31  32  Adults in debt are three times more likely than those  Financial stress is associated with high levels of  personal anxiety, depression and alcohol-dependency - problems that tend to felt more acutely by people with low levels of financial literacy. 33  The link between debt, financial illiteracy and mental health is clearly two-way. In a survey by mental health charity MIND, over 90% said that financial problems had worsened existing mental health problems, while around two-thirds said mental health problems had contributed to their financial difficulties. 34  There is a  debt-cum-depression spiral. These statistics are, in every sense of the word, depressing. A lack of trust or understanding of finance and the economy can have wider societal costs. Economic mistrust and misunderstanding can spread contagiously across societies, much as happened after the MMR 26  House of Lords Select Committee on Financial Exclusion (2017). Resolution Foundation (2014). 28 Lusardi and Tufano (2009). 29 Gerardi, Goette and Meier (2010). 30 Disney and Gathergood (2013), for example, find that borrowers with poor financial literacy hold higher shares of high cost credit. 31 Richardson et al (2017). 32 Earwicker (2016). 33 Earwicker (2016). 34 As quoted in Earwicker (2016). 27  6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  6  vaccine scare.
Here I should point out, as the Report does on different occasions, that acknowledging the impact of the second recession is crucial, because there is a tendency to ignore it, as though it were an incident without importance when actually it was fundamental to how events unfolded and in terms of its impact on our credit institutions. Fourthly, there were errors of perception as to how the imbalances that built up with the real estate bubble – among others, the imbalances on bank balance sheets – could be corrected. It was thought they could be corrected mildly, in a gradual fashion. Circumstances showed that this expectation was overly optimistic because the correction was rapid, brutal and with consequences that have not yet been entirely overcome. A further reflection – although I should say here that the opinion cannot be construed as forceful, or very certain – is that the attempt to minimise in the short term the cost of the resolution of the banking crisis for public finances by means of a gradual approach, facing problems as and when they emerged, might ultimately have involved committing a greater volume of public resources than, say, a more aggressive or more ambitious approach from the onset of the crisis. I insist, though, that this is a question for which there is no reply exempt from objections and counter-arguments. In any event, the Bank could obviously not act independently of the course of our public finances and of the decisions by other authorities.

it practically doubled in two years. Over the same period 2001-2007, 570,000 new houses per year on average were built, house prices increased twofold in real terms, and by 2.5 times in nominal terms. As the Report notes, this process adjusted to a dynamic consistent with what may be considered to be a speculative real estate bubble, meaning that the attendant prices stood far above what the fundamentals in the respective markets – and naturally the housing market – would have warranted. 4/14  The increase in credit and its concentration in the real estate sector came about at a time at which the Spanish economy was undergoing deep-seated changes, on two fronts in particular: the adoption of the euro and rapid demographic growth, which made it difficult to assess the scale of the imbalances. The adoption of the euro as from 1999 entailed the disappearance of the adjustment mechanism for the exchange rate against the rest of the euro area countries and the adoption of the common monetary policy, which maintained an expansionary stance during those years, with an appreciable reduction in the interest rates prevailing for the Spanish economy. The monetary policy stance was appropriate for the area as a whole, but was no doubt overly expansionary for Spain. The build-up of imbalances also occurred in other euro area countries, in a setting in which different institutions, analysts and economic policymakers confided excessively in the stabilising effect of the euro.
5  See ECB Opinion of 22 March 2012 on (i) a proposal for a directive on markets in financial instruments repealing Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, (ii) a proposal for a regulation on markets in financial instruments and amending Regulation [EMIR] on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories, (iii) a proposal for a directive on criminal sanctions for insider dealing and market manipulation and (iv) a proposal for a regulation on insider dealing and market manipulation (market abuse) (CON/2012/21). 6  See e.g. Madhavan, A., “Consolidation, fragmentation, and the disclosure of trading information”, The Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 8, No 3, pp. 579-603 and Bloomfield, R. and O’Hara, M., “Can transparent markets survive?”, Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 55, No 3, pp. 425–459. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  opacity enables the extraction of rents and can lead to increased price dispersion7, with negative consequences for market integrity and fairness. Furthermore, a low level of posttrade transparency can significantly distort the informational role of prices by preventing the diffusion of value-relevant information, which may hamper market liquidity because of adverse selection. In line with this rather positive view of post-trade transparency, a number of empirical studies8 have found that the introduction of mandatory trade reporting has significantly improved formerly opaque market segments, such as the market for US corporate bonds. At the same time, one must be aware of potentially negative side effects.

Fatos Ibrahimi: The reduction of cash in the context of reducing the informal economy Speech by Mr Fatos Ibrahimi, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the Conference “Reducing the informal economy – a challenge of the Albanian Government”, Tirana, 16 October 2006. *  *  *  Since the inception of the programme undertaken by the Bank of Albania, in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Finance, on reducing cash, it came clear that the issue of cash in economy cannot be treated as separate from the issue of the informal economy. The companies, which try not to expose their activities to the third parties, will avoid banks and will find alternative sources of financing and payment, mainly in cash. Therefore, the Government initiative on reducing the informal economy is to be welcomed when bearing in mind the great impact it will have on reducing the cash economy. It needs to be said that the process of formalizing the economy has not been considered as an excuse for not undertaking a number of measures and initiatives, which may accelerate the progress of cash reduction. Among the actions undertaken in this context, I would mention:  1. The channelling of the state administration payrolls through the bank accounts  At this moment, the entire public administration payrolls are channelled through the accounts with the commercial banks.