samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Conclusion With just a few months before the launch of SEPA, banks are making preparations in order to be ready. I have been closely enough involved to see the tremendous efforts made by the banking industry, and I expect that the vast majority of banks will be operationally ready for SEPA. Operational readiness is, however, not enough. Indeed, SEPA is the next step of the euro. January 2008 will only be the start of this process. SEPA will enhance pan-European competition and foster integration, consolidation and innovation. SEPA requires us to take a broad view that goes beyond operational readiness. In the coming months, we need to go the extra mile and make an additional effort to ensure the readiness of customers and the card payments market. We also need to think about the next steps. And there are, indeed, important further steps in this process. Creative solutions will pay off! Some years ago SEPA was an idea. In 70 days, SEPA will be reality. I wish you an open and fruitful conference. Thank you for your attention. BIS Review 134/2007  5

Rather than eliminating intermediation, if left on its own, digital finance will more likely lead to reshuffling the cards, with the most digitally-agile incumbents and the most financially-able challengers becoming the new dominant (and potentially systemic) intermediaries in a landscape where there would be four coexisting intermediation models: 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, in particular financing 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 blockchain and peer-to-peer economies. 2. The digital revolution forces public authorities with an interest in financial stability to revisit a wide array of policy issues This move from a bank-centric intermediation model toward new unbundled financial intermediation models performed by multiple players does not eliminate the need for central 2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  banks, regulators and supervisors. But it does force us to revisit old questions (A) and to address new ones (B). (A) I would like to highlight two old questions that we must revisit. First, the activities to be covered by financial regulation. Just as an example, the use of the public cloud to perform core banking operations is becoming mainstream. Fintechs and Bigtechs have adopted an “all-in” strategy. Incumbents are also migrating, although more cautiously, to the public cloud.
And notwithstanding my rather jaundiced remarks above about forgotten lessons, some of the risks involved in commercial property are now better understood. This could simply mean that this cycle will repeat history but in a less pronounced way than last time. Perhaps I should at this point recognise the VAT changes announced in the last budget. These have caused a strong reaction from the property industry. They have caused a halt to a number of major deals. I do not know how the matter will be resolved and will not speculate whether the impact will be lasting. More of that no doubt in coming weeks. But are there any other new influences which could bring about a different - and better - outcome than the last cycle? There are at least four other important factors which arguably did not exist in 1989. They may all make the market less volatile in the years ahead. Let me be a bit visionary. 18 The first of these is a low inflationary environment. The political constituency for low inflation is now almost certainly stronger than at any time in living memory. There is a real prospect that a low inflation environment can be sustained into the future. This is a profound change and should help to smooth the path of future economic cycles. This environment is likely to mean slower growth in nominal rents and also less volatile capital values. The emphasis will continue to change from capital gain to running yield.

Mugur Isărescu: Unconventional monetary policies and financial stability – implications for banks and financial markets Address by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the joint CIGI (Centre for International Governance Innovation) – Oliver Wyman conference, Rome, 15 December 2015. *  *  *  The address was presented by Governor Mugur Isărescu during the panel session “Unconventional monetary policies and their impact on financial markets”, which also included the following members: • • • • • •  Domenico Lombardi, Director of the Global Economy Program, CIGI Malcolm Knight, Distinguished Fellow, CIGI (former General Manager of the BIS) Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, Chairman, Société Générale (former Vice-President of the ECB) Lorenzo Codogno – Professor in Practice European Institute, LES Pierpaolo Benigno, Professor of Economics, LUISS University Carlotta de Franceschi, Co-Founder and President, Action Institute  Participants included, among others: • • • • • • •  Robert Ophèle, Deputy Governor, Banque de France Dimitar Bogov, Governor, National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia Korbinian Ibel, Director General, Micro-Prudential Supervision IV, ECB Margarita Delgado, Deputy Director General, SSM, DG1, ECB Matthew Elderfield, Head of Compliance, Lloyds Bank Carlo Corradini, Member of the Supervisory Board, Intesa Sanpaolo Pierre Siklos, Senior Fellow, CIGI  Ladies and Gentlemen, It is an honour for me to address the audience during this conference on unconventional monetary policies.
Disappointingly, Turandot's answer to the flickering flame was not "confidence" as I had thought it would be. Her rather chilling answer was BLOOD - which could no doubt flow if confidence were to fail. But you have to remember that I was watching the opera over a month ago. Perhaps today she would come up with a somewhat more positive answer. Turandot's third riddle was "What is the frost that burns…… and makes a king of the one it accepts as a slave?" Well for a time that stumped me completely! Not that it mattered much by then - I'd already failed the first two of Turandot's tests, so I knew I was for the chop anyway! But then I began to reflect on the implications of it all for our own economy here in the UK. And I even recalled that previous occasion on which I had dined with you here at the ACT dinner. At that time we'd had just 2½ years of growth with low inflation - after the 1990/91 recession. I told you that we were determined to maintain price stability as a necessary condition for sustainable growth of output and employment. You all hooted with laughter! Your President said it had been the best joke of the evening - even though you'd heard it many times before! Well we've now had 10 years of low inflation - with continuous, quarter-by-quarter, GDP growth, and the number of people in employment is at a near-all-time high.

It goes with the grain of how banks are resolved, reinforcing the continuity of services which are critical to the real economy. It is predictable, with a clear framework of rules. It is proportionate, applying only above a clear size threshold. And it is efficient, allowing wholesale and investment business to prosper at a safe distance from retail and SME customers. Ring-fencing is a very substantial undertaking for the PRA, the FCA and the affected banks – but we are on track for implementation by 1 January 2019. Stability begins at home  Once these reforms are up and running, the core deposit-taking and payments services that must be continuously supplied to UK households and small firms will be protected in ring-fenced banks (RFBs). Groups operating across borders will also include non-ring-fenced banks (NRFBs) and will need to be resilient according to their global footprint. Resilience requires systemic capital buffers both at the domestic and global level. The domestic buffer applies to the RFB whereas any global buffer applies to the whole group. The RFB and NRFB shares of capital should provide sufficient resilience for each. So if the size of the domestic buffer risks leaving the rest of the group with too small a share to be resilient against shocks, we will increase the group’s buffer to 2  prevent this from happening . These complexities do not just flow from ring-fencing but from the international reach of many UK banking groups. We set their consolidated requirements as home supervisor.
The report discusses three models for improving the efficiency of the ECB Councils' decision making in an enlargement of the number of participants in the monetary union: rotation, representation and delegation. That is to say, a rotating voting right between a number of central bank heads, similar to the Federal Open Markets Committee in the USA, the formation of constituencies of central bank heads with joint representatives on the ECB Council, rather like at the Bundesbank following the German reunification, and finally delegation to a small group of experts, roughly like the Monetary Policy Committee in the UK. The CEPR report then gives an account of the advantages and disadvantages of the three models. The discussion will probably intensify when the Nice Treaty comes into force. The roles played by Sweden and the Riksbank Sweden as a country plays an important role in the whole of this enlargement process, because of the support from both politicians and the general public for our neighbouring countries in the east. The Riksbank tries to contribute where we can. We share our experiences regarding monetary policy and financial stability, particularly with the three countries that, like Sweden, have inflation targets; Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, as well as, of course, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The latter are particularly important, bearing in mind Swedish banks' large ownership in the Baltic banking system. Economists from the Baltic and central European central banks visit the Riksbank regularly and we visit them.

Eddie Yue: The development and future of the offshore Renminbi market Keynote address by Mr Eddie Yue, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Euromoney Global Offshore RMB Funding Forum 2013, Hong Kong, 8 May 2013. *  *  *  Tony (Shale)1 Richard (Morrow),2 Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning, and thank you all for coming. I’m honoured that Euromoney has invited me to speak at the Global Offshore RMB Funding Forum for the second year in a row. I recognise many familiar faces in the audience today, and I note the presence of a wide range of panellists who will no doubt examine the offshore RMB market from every possible angle and perspective. Here in Hong Kong – the world’s premier offshore RMB business centre – we have had a front row seat to watch the offshore RMB market take shape over the past few years. Since I last addressed this forum in May 2012, this market has continued to expand and evolve at a dizzying pace, which will provide for an interesting and timely dialogue today. However, before we get into what will be a spirited discussion, I want to use my role as the opening keynote speaker to take a step back and gain a broader perspective of developments to date. I also want to look at the macro context, which is likely to play a major role in shaping future developments.
To set things in motion, we introduced the Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework (ICTF) last month. Along with the RPP, the ICTF is also expected to be a game changer for Malaysia’s payment landscape, particularly for mobile payments. For the first time in Malaysia and likely in the region, banks and non-banks will be connected on a single payment network. This is a good example of a strategy of collaborative competition, or ‘co-opetition. Payment providers collaborate at the infrastructure level via the shared payment infrastructure and compete on the service level. This expands network reach, lowers costs and avoids duplication of resources by the industry. It also focuses competition at the product level. Looking ahead, we envisage industry players to develop more innovative value-added features to provide better service levels to consumers and merchants. Another important area where innovation plays a prominent role, is to advance financial inclusion through digitalisation. Out of the Malaysian adult population of 24 million, we estimate that about 10 million do not use online banking, while 2 million remain unbanked. We look to the industry, both banks and non-banks, to come up with new and imaginative ways to accelerate the onboarding of these underbanked and unbanked segments of our society. In supporting this, the transaction fee for instant transfer transactions up to RM5,000 will be waived effective 1 July 2018 for individuals and SMEs. Strategies beyond monetary incentives also need to be employed. For example, mobile payment applications should be convenient, fast, secure, simple and intuitive.

In Malaysia, the payment system has significantly transformed over the last 25 years. The journey started many years ago in 1997, major changes to the payment landscape occurred with the consolidation of the three ATM networks in the country into MEPS. This initiative removed duplication and enhanced the network multiplier effects. In fact, Malaysia was among the first in the world to complete the migration to the more secure chip-based payment cards in 2005. To provide a roadmap for the development, in 2011, Bank Negara Malaysia developed a 10-year Financial Sector Blueprint which amongst others, outlined the initiative to displace paperbased payment instruments, namely cheques and cash, in favour of the more convenient and cost effective e-payment methods. We now have PayNet, the domestic shared infrastructure at the heart of the country’s payment systems. We envision PayNet to be a catalyst, one that challenges the status quo to drive its diverse members to foster competition and innovation, develop cost effective solutions and advance financial inclusion through digital payments. We should expect PayNet to ensure that the payment infrastructure of this country will always be at the cutting edge of technology. This will enable the economy to innovate, be competitive and productive. The results speak for themselves; we have made great strides. Payment card spending has increased by more than threefold since 2006 to RM176.9 billion in 2017. From 2011 to 2017, epayments per capita have more than doubled to 111 transactions.
It also excludes the direct effects of changes in indirect taxes and subsidies. This measure was previously called UND1X. This name referred to the fact that it was a measure of underlying inflation, but probably appeared a little too cryptic. I remember that I may have let slip that I thought it sounded like the name of a rocket fuel during my first hearing. The new and hopefully slightly less difficult name since a week ago is CPIX, where the X indicates that something has been excluded from the CPI. This takes me onto today’s second theme, namely inflation prospects, our most recent interest rate decision and our view of what monetary policy will be appropriate in the future. The economic situation and future prospects It can hardly have escaped the attention of anyone here today that we now base our forecasts on our own assessment of what future movements in the repo rate we believe will provide a well-balanced monetary policy. So before I take up the rest of the economic analysis, I shall first describe the interest rate assumption. Our analysis is based partly on the increase in the repo rate of 0.25 percentage points to 4 per cent which we decided on just over two weeks ago, and partly on the fact that the interest rate will need to be raised slightly further in the future – to around 4.25 per cent during the first half of 2008. So how did we reach this assessment?

And by being clear about how we view future monetary policy we can also increase the efficiency of monetary policy (slide 1). It is not merely the current interest rate decision and the current level of the interest rate that are important to future inflation and demand in the economy. Households and companies do not base their financial decisions only on the current interest rates. Expectations of how the repo rate will develop over the coming years are at least as important. But there are also other reasons for the increased openness. As I mentioned earlier, public support and legitimacy are a fundamental requirement for monetary policy to work. We have freedom with responsibility and with this come demands for insight and accountability. Openness is also something that has long imbued Swedish public administration. The principle of free public access which means that public authorities' activities shall as far as possible be carried out openly, was established as early as the late 18th century, a time when few other countries had such ideas. So this is a long tradition we are maintaining. The fact that we are examined closely is also something that affects the efficiency of our work. The more open we are, the easier it is for a member of the Committee on Finance or any other member of society to evaluate how well monetary policy works. Clarity and increased openness outwards lead to a better discussion of monetary policy.
We do not have the “time to market” pressure that private companies have. This raises questions that in my opinion have appeared far too seldom on our agendas; questions about management, about setting objectives and managing resources, about internal control and, not least, questions about governance. How should we lead the operations of a central bank? Generally, a central bank may learn from any type of successful organisation, we are not that different. But we face a special challenge. Our governance model has often been created to arrive at a well-founded monetary-policy decision. Such a decision benefits from a careful process with a wide-ranging discussion of different scenarios that finally results in a collective decision-making discussion in (in our case) a group of six. This is a structure that has worked well for our policy decisions, but few organisations voluntarily choose a collective of six individuals for the operational management of its activities. Our challenge has thus been to draw a clear line between the structure for making policy decisions and that for other decisions. At the Riksbank, this has entailed relieving the Executive Board of responsibility for day-to-day management and transferring this responsibility to a lower level in the line organisation. This has been – and still is – easier said than done and requires constant attention. It also demands discipline on the part of those at the top of the organisational chart.

I will now go on to speak about some conceivable changes in the work on monetary policy, financial regulation and financial stability and – not least – the interaction between them. In addition to new thinking on policy and other issues, we also need to adapt our organisations and our governance to achieve optimum efficiency. The recent financial crisis provided additional input into the discussion on how the work on financial stability can become more effective and what instruments are appropriate in achieving this goal. Furthermore, having clearly proved that there are close links between monetary policy and financial stability, the financial crisis has revitalised the debate on whether central banks need to consider not only price stability but also financial stability when setting interest rates. Just a couple of years back, the common view was that since it was difficult to predict a crisis, a central bank should try to do no more than react forcefully when the crisis was already a fact. The main explanation of this reassessment is probably that the costs of a financial crisis – and hence the potential benefits of preventing a crisis – can turn out to be much bigger than previously thought. In my view, regulation and supervision remain the first line of defence in preventing unsound developments in financial markets. The financial crisis has clearly shown that there is an urgent need to reassess the regulation of the financial sector, in addition to strengthening the macro-prudential framework.
We can now look back on a quarter of a century of low and stable inflation. Chart: Fluctuations in output and employment A monetary policy oriented towards low and stable inflation has not compromised stability in the real economy – in fact, the opposite is true. Employment variability has been lower since 2001 than in previous periods, despite the substantial shocks that have impacted the Norwegian economy. 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  However, lessons have been learned along the way. Initially, most inflation-targeting central banks emphasised the importance of steering inflation towards the target within a clearly defined time horizon. Experience of this regime provided useful insight, and ambitions were later adjusted. International events, such as falls in global commodity prices and other major changes in export and import prices, can have a considerable impact on small open economies. This can result in wide fluctuations in inflation that cannot be counteracted without having a substantial impact on the real economy. Norges Bank has addressed this concern by giving greater weight to output and employment. The inflation target horizon has been extended and monetary policy has gradually become more flexible. Chart: Monetary policy mandate The benefits of flexible inflation targeting were emphasised when the Government in March 2018 presented a new regulation on monetary policy. The new regulation specifies that inflation targeting shall be forward-looking and flexible, so that it can contribute to high and stable output and employment and to counteracting the build-up of financial imbalances.

These positive developments have been fostered and supported by the pass-through of the ECB’s monetary policy measures, which have significantly eased borrowing conditions for households and firms, notably also for small and medium-sized enterprises. Considering all of the monetary policy measures taken between mid-2014 and October 2017, the overall impact on euro area growth and inflation is estimated, in both cases, to be around 1.9 percentage points cumulatively for the period between 2016 and 2020. Our measures have put the euro area economy on a solid growth pathway, driven by endogenous domestic dynamics and thus more resistant to a potential slowdown in global demand. At the same time, inflation has yet to show more convincing signs of a sustained upward adjustment. After lingering at levels well below 1% for three years, with occasional dips into negative territory, euro area headline inflation has fluctuated between 1.3% and 1.5% since May last year. Annual inflation stood at 1.3% in January. The changes in headline inflation have been driven by movements in the more volatile components, namely energy prices and, to a lesser extent, food prices. Measures of underlying inflation – which we monitor for their information content concerning inflation dynamics – have remained subdued. Inflation excluding energy and food was 1% in January, and has ranged between 0.9% and 1.2% since April 2017. Let me now focus on the factors behind these moderate inflation developments from a longerterm perspective.