samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Launch of AmIslamic Bank Berhad Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Official Launch of AmIslamic Bank Berhad, Kuala Lumpur, 18 May 2006. *  *  *  It is my pleasure to be here this morning on the occasion of the launch of AmIslamic Bank Berhad. This strategic move to establish the Islamic banking subsidiary that will operate under the more universal Islamic Banking Act will increase further the potential avenues for business expansion. It will also increase the potential to benefit from the rapid growth of Islamic banking and finance both in the domestic and international environment. Ladies and Gentlemen, On the domestic front, all sectors within the Islamic financial services industry, which includes Islamic banking, takaful and the capital and money markets, continue to register strong performance. To date, the Islamic banking assets amount to RM113.5 billion and the takaful assets stand at RM5.9 billion. The amount of approved Islamic bonds in 2005 exceed RM40 billion, while the Islamic money market has recorded sizeable monthly turnovers of RM135.2 billion. Similar progress has been achieved on the international front. There has been a significant increase in the number of Islamic financial institutions that have been established in the global financial system, and the funds seeking for Shariah-compliant investment avenues have also increased dramatically.

Banks have become more vulnerable to distortions in the credit markets. Historically, our 4 banks primarily obtained funds through deposits by households and enterprises. In recent  1  Folketrygdfondet will manage the new Government Bond Fund. 2  The Government has increased the capital of Kommunalbanken Norway (the local government funding agency), it has increased the scope of GIEK (the central government export credit agency) and Innovation Norway, and has offered state loans to Eksportfinans Norway (the credit institution for export financing). 3  Figures for banks’ equity capital before 1918 are based on: Jan Tore Klovland (2007): “A reconstruction of the balance sheets of savings banks in Norway 1822-1875” and “A reconstruction of the balance sheets of commercial banks in Norway1848-1900” in Øyvind Eitrheim, Jan Tore Klovland and Jan F. Qvigstad (Ed.) (2007): “Historical Monetary Statistics for Norway – Part II” Norges Bank’s Occasional Papers, No. 38, Oslo. Statistics Norway is the source for figures from 1919 to 1995. Norges Bank is the source for figures from 1996. 4  Figures are taken from the sources in footnote 3 and Hege Imset Matre, H. I. (1992): Norske forretningsbanker 1848-1990: En tilbakeføring av forretningsstatistikken (Norwegian commercial banks 1848-1990). Report No 41 from the research programme Det nye pengesamfunnet. 2  BIS Review 37/2009  years, banks have borrowed in both domestic and foreign markets. When credit markets dried up, this proved to involve high liquidity risk for banks.
Furthermore, given the fact that the framework for macro-prudential analysis and policy is presently only at a formative stage of development, the need for reflection on the risks of unintended consequences is key, as formulating policies that are aimed at safeguarding financial stability may create vulnerabilities further down the road. BIS Review 125/2010  3  IV. The establishment of the ESRB as part of the reform of the EU supervisory framework  One of the main lessons from the financial crisis concerns the necessity of a framework for monitoring the various sources of systemic risk and assessing their consequences for the financial system in a comprehensive and timely manner. Therefore, there is an agreement at international level about the need to strengthen the macro-prudential approach to regulation and supervision of the financial system as a whole. So far there has not been in Europe an authority able, both from an institutional and operational point of view, to conduct a comprehensive financial stability assessment covering the whole EU financial sector. Apart from the financial stability assessment conducted by individual central banks, the only area-wide comprehensive assessment is contained in the Financial Stability Review, which is prepared by the ECB and focuses on the euro-area. Moreover, Europe has lacked a framework that could allow translating warnings about possible building up of systemic risks in certain components of the financial sector into concrete policy actions by competent supervisory and regulatory authorities to address such risks.

Last but not least, the HKMA launched the Fintech Supervisory Sandbox in September in order to create a regulatory environment that is conducive to fintech development. The Sandbox enables banks to conduct pilot trials of their fintech initiatives in a controlled production environment without the need to achieve full compliance with the HKMA’s usual supervisory requirements. So far, two banks have already made use of the Sandbox to conduct pilot trials of their biometric authentication and securities trading services. A few banks are discussing with us and planning to make use of the Sandbox for conducting their project trials in the coming few months, in areas such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and many more. 10. In parallel to all these fintech projects that the FFO has launched, the HKMA has issued 13 Stored Value Facilities licences in two batches under the newly established regulatory regime. These licensees range from mobile and Internet payment service providers to prepaid card issuers. As payment and SVF operators are important stakeholders in the fintech ecosystem, we have also invited five of the SVF licensees to join today’s event and share their experience in relation to the latest e-payment developments in Hong Kong. 11. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, we have lined up a full day’s programme with top fintech experts and regulators as speakers. I am sure that all of you will find today’s discussions fruitful and insightful. Thank you very much. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
Erroneous price signals lead to mistaken investment decisions, that is, to a less efficient use of resources, which reduces the economy’s productive capacity and, ultimately, its growth. There is abundant evidence of the harmful effects of inflation on long-term growth (Barro, 1995; De Gregorio, 1995). But, why does inflation tend to be higher when the central bank is not autonomous? To begin with, there is a need for public expenditure financing. There are various reasons why there is always pressure to increase public spending. Many of them are well-known and it is beyond the purpose of this presentation to discuss them. The truth that this tendency to raise public spending combined with the fact that the inflation tax is easy to collect, creates a natural pressure towards higher inflation. BIS Review 156/2009  1  Numerous episodes where fiscal objectives have dominated price stability goals have resulted in significant inflationary spirals, which are very costly for society. This fact is wellknown in Chile and in the rest of our region. A second element behind the inflationary bias has to do with the so-called dynamic inconsistency problem. In parallel with the tendency of the government to increase public spending comes the incentive to boost economic activity above sustainable levels. There are several reasons for this to occur. Potential market failures may result in a less than socially optimal output level, or political cycle motives can lead the central bank to try to boost economic activity beyond the level believed to be sustainable in the medium term.

A number of the measures in the programme are directly relevant to foreign banks and you may therefore be interested to hear about what we have done so far, and what more we have in mind. The current state of the banking sector The Consultancy Study was conceived just before the outbreak of the Asian Crisis and took place during it. The Hong Kong banking sector has now come through the crisis, and can be said to have clearly demonstrated its resilience and underlying strength. It is true that the number of foreign banks in Hong Kong has fallen sharply over the last two years. This reflects the fallout from the crisis that has led to the demise of some banks and has required others to cut back on their overseas operations and return to their home base. Hong Kong has certainly not been the only financial centre to witness this retreat. However, the important point is that the core of the Hong Kong banking system - represented by the local banks and the large foreign players - has remained intact. Although bad debts rose sharply during the crisis and a few banks lost money, the banks generally remained profitable and financially sound. The capital ratios of the local banks actually rose during the crisis period. No banks failed and no depositors lost money. The Government was not called upon to provide financial support. The results of the banks for the first half of this year show that their recovery from the crisis is well underway.
It is an elaborate conceit to think anybody can be that precise in an economy as large as that of the United States, operating as it does within the context of an even larger, very dynamic, global economy. This is true for Fed economists as well as academics and those who sell their forecasts for a living. This is not to say that we will cease and desist from making “point” forecasts. But what matters most to me is the direction in which the numbers are headed and the general sense of momentum. At this juncture, I think it sufficient to say that, assuming the people we elect to tax us and spend our money and create the rules and regulations that govern our economic behavior can at long last get their act together, confront their own denial of most rudimentary budgetary discipline, learn to shoot straight and remove the Damocles Sword of uncertainty that they have for too long unwittingly wielded over our job-creating private sector, there is plenty of potential for the economy to move forward at an accelerating clip. This is especially the case now that the Fed has reliquified the economy. I expect that economic activity will accelerate in the second half of this year, with real GDP likely to rise at an average annual rate of between 3 and 4 percent.

In an important financial centre like Edinburgh, we need to be well connected, and to understand your assessment of the threats to financial stability and we need to explain what we are doing to tackle these threats. Our market intelligence function under my colleague Paul Fisher plays an important role here, and is in frequent contact with the Scottish financial community. This contact will be even more important under the new arrangements in which the Bank will be responsible for macroprudential policy and its focus on the stability of the financial system, with a new policy making body, the Financial Policy Committee, or FPC. Alongside and feeding into the Bank’s macroprudential role will be our new responsibility for microprudential supervision of deposit takers, insurers and major securities dealers, also in a new body, the Prudential Regulation Authority, or PRA. It is therefore a period of major change at the Bank, and we are taking very seriously our role in building a system of regulation in the UK that must meet the very reasonable expectations of the public for a safer and sounder financial system. The overarching objective for the Bank is to put the stability of the financial system at the heart of the mission of financial regulation. We are now in the fourth year since the financial crisis started in the middle of 2007. The Scottish banking system took a pounding during the earlier stages of the crisis.
commercial banks’ claims on the Riksbank, amounts to SEK 435 billion. The liquidity surplus would therefore be about SEK 70 billion even if the entire bond portfolio was sold. 17 Another argument sometimes put forward in favour of large bond holdings is that the central bank’s purchases would increase the supply of safe assets in the economy, and that there is otherwise a shortage of such assets. 18 The Riksbank’s bond purchases result in that government bonds with a specific maturity disappear from the market and are replaced by Riksbank certificates with a maturity of one week. 19 The Riksbank then takes over some of the maturity transformation that the market otherwise tries to achieve on its own, and helps to reduce the interest rate risk in the outstanding portfolio of government securities. This argument isn’t particularly convincing either. If it is considered important to have short maturity on the national debt in normal times, this should be dealt with when the government bonds are issued, and it is then a question for the National Debt Office. Furthermore, the conversion from government securities to Riksbank assets does not seem to increase the supply of safe assets in Sweden; the interest rate on (short-term) government securities is lower than the repo rate which means that the market price of government bonds is higher than the price of Riksbank certificates with the same maturity.

The support measures that may become relevant in special situations can either relate to market stabilisation, as was the case in the autumn of 2008, or to bond purchases as a complement to monetary policy when the policy rate is restricted by its lower bound. There is a great deal to suggest that real interest rates in Sweden and abroad will be lower in the future than they were during the decades preceding the financial crisis, partly as a result of demographic changes and a new saving pattern in the global economy. 15 As a consequence, several central banks, including the Riksbank, have revised down their assessments of what is a normal level for the policy rate. The likelihood is therefore greater than we will touch the lower bound for the repo rate in the event of economic slowdown. This means that we in the future more often may need to use bond purchases as a complement to the repo rate and repo rate forecast. So, even if I have argued that a portfolio of government bonds has a limited role to play in monetary policy in normal conditions, I nevertheless expect that the Riksbank, along with other central banks, will find itself in situations where bond purchases are justified as a complement to interest rate policy.
For example, during the money fund reform period, as money flowed from prime to government funds, prime funds used the facility to become more liquid in advance of redemptions and government funds used it to temporarily absorb new investments.31 Finally, the Treasury General Account (TGA) has grown substantially in recent years as the U.S. Treasury has decided to hold a precautionary buffer of cash generally sufficient to cover five business days of outflows, subject to a minimum balance of $ billion. Given the daily variability of TGA balances, this type of account would be also expensive for the private sector to offer under new regulations. Further, as the buffer has been funded mainly through increased bill issuance, it has increased the supply of money-like assets to the private sector. Conclusion Central banks are uniquely able to produce money-like assets that are viewed as safe during non-normal times. In more normal times, regulation and supervision are the best tools to mitigate risks from the private creation of money-like assets, but there is a role for the central bank to use 7 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  its balance sheet to smooth fluctuations in the supply and demand for money-like assets. 1  I would like to thank Marco Cipriani, Gabriele La Spada, Deborah Leonard, and Antoine Martin for their assistance in preparing these remarks.

But my confidence will be bolstered if my colleagues adopt the First Law of Holes espoused in the late ’70s by then-British Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging”. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  The housing market is well along in repair;5 the economy is expanding; cyclical unemployment is declining. To be sure, there will be individual data points that appear to challenge confidence, like the just-released employment report for December. But I believe the odds favor continued economic progress. And I believe that continuing large-scale asset purchases risks placing us in an untenable position, both from the standpoint of unreasonably inflating the stock, bond and other tradable asset markets and from the perspective of complicating the future conduct of monetary policy. The eye of the needle of pulling off a clean exit is narrow; the camel is already too fat. As soon as feasible, we should change tack. We should stop digging. I plan to cast my votes at FOMC meetings accordingly. Thank you. 5  See “The Long-Awaited Housing Recovery”, by John Duca, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Special Report, January 2014, www.dallasfed.org (note: the report will be available online on Jan. 15). 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches
By and large, they are not currently configured as centres for life-long learning. And nor, in the main, are they institutions providing a balanced educational offering of cognitive, technical and social skills. To meet the needs of the future world of work, that might need to change. The importance of a broad-based, Newman-style, education is likely to be greater than ever. This might criss-cross disciplinary boundaries, as one way of increasing people’s ability to make giant logical leaps. Those skills will be social and technical every bit as much as cognitive, with head, hands and hearts sharing equal billing. Put this way, the future university may need to be a very different creature than in the past. It may need to cater for multiple entry points along the age distribution, rather than focussing on the young. And it may need to cater for multiple entry points along the skills spectrum, rather than focussing on the cognitive. It would, in short, need to be plural rather than singular – a “multiversity”, rather than a university. (b) Intellectual Capital  Multiversities are about spreading future skills across the workforce. Another educational challenge is how to spread future technologies across companies. This is crucial if ideas and innovations are to become GPTs, boosting productivity, pay and living standards. At present, evidence on the diffusion of new technologies across firms paints a rather mixed picture. To understand why, it is useful to recognise that two forces are at work when a new idea is diffusing through the economy.

And even if they could replicate them, humans might still prefer humans to carry them out. The future could see a world of work in which EQ rivals IQ for skill supremacy. Professions involving high degrees of personal and social interaction – such as health, caring, education and leisure – could see demand rise. Indeed, it is possible the balance between cognitive and social skills might alter significantly even among jobs which traditionally have been cognitively-intense. Take medicine. The doctor of the future might be valued far less for their clinical competence in diagnosing illness and prescribing solutions. In a world of individual medical records and data-hungry diagnostic algorithms, much of the process of diagnosis and prescription might fall to machine rather than human. Indeed, the UK Prime Minister has recently suggested a strategy to deliver just that. 60  But that is unlikely by itself to eradicate the need for doctors. Patients are still likely to want to discuss their diagnosis and prescription. And they will want this advice delivered personally and empathetically. In surveys of patient satisfaction it is a doctor’s bedside manner, rather than clinical competence, that matters most. 61  In future, that balance between social and clinical skills may shift further. And, most likely, those  social skills will be demanded from flesh-and-blood rather than robo-doctors. If both the nature of a career and the skills it requires are changing, does this carry implications for educational institutions? That seems likely.
Lorenzo Bini Smaghi: On the occasion of the inauguration of the Euro Exhibition in Rome Speech by Mr Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the inauguration of the Euro Exhibition, Rome, 3 April 2009. *  *  *  Dear Fabrizio, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure for me to be here in these wonderful premises of Banca d’Italia in Rome to celebrate with you the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Stage Three of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and of the adoption of the euro. We are also here to inaugurate “The Euro Exhibition”, presenting the euro banknotes and coins through a range of innovative features, which we hope will be appreciated by the public in Rome. 1. First 10 years of the euro  On 1 January 1999 the Third Stage of EMU began with the irrevocable fixing of the exchange rates of the currencies of the 11 Member States initially forming the euro area. Monetary authority for the new currency was transferred to the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. The euro became the currency of over 300 million citizens of Europe. The number of countries participating in the EMU grew over the years. Today, euro banknotes and coins are legal tender in 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union, and used by almost 330 million citizens in the euro area. Slovakia has recently become the 16th member of the euro area.

Following a two-week dual circulation period during which payments could be made using either euro or Slovak koruna, the euro became the sole legal tender in Slovakia from 17 January 2009 and the changeover was very smooth. Today, the single currency is used in an area that stretches from Cyprus to Ireland and from Portugal to Finland. As you know, the euro cash did not enter into circulation until 1 January 2002, when it replaced the banknotes and coins of the national currencies like, in the case of Italy, the lira. To support the cash changeover, which was one of the largest logistical operations undertaken in Europe, extensive information campaigns were successfully run to acquaint citizens with the visual appearance of the euro banknotes and coins. The euro is widely recognised as a currency of major significance on the international level. Some 12 billion banknotes circulate in Europe and beyond, representing a face value of more than EUR 700 billion. The number of euro banknotes in circulation continued to grow since the initial cash changeover in 2002 and their value has almost tripled since the end of the changeover period. With this success story in mind, we are confidently looking forward to the anniversaries to come, which will be marked by the full consolidation of the euro and its further adoption by new member states. 2. The Euro Exhibition  Today we inaugurate the Euro Exhibition here in Rome.