samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
However, this concern for customer rights came into being and developed in a context of maximum customer confidence towards banks and, most importantly, towards bank employees, which, in short, led to a high degree of customer loyalty to banks. During the 1990s and in the first half of the last decade such loyalty was negatively and slowly impacted by growing competition and the subsequent need to improve net interest margins. And the crisis unleashed as from 2007 saw the culmination of this deterioration and led to a significant loss of confidence by customers in banks, giving rise to a new scenario. Against this background of public mistrust in banks, and the weakening of the aforementioned degree of loyalty, the new technologies add additional challenges for the industry when it comes to tending to their relationship with customers. They alter consumer demands, with consumers now seeking flexible, immediate and personalised interaction anywhere and at any time. They also lower the entry barriers to the business, as the extensive networks of branches to capture and retain customers that characterised traditional banking no longer seem necessary. I consider that, as regards technological innovation, it is more fitting for the moment to talk about evolution rather than revolution, and that not all technological initiatives exert the same influence on banking business and nor do they necessarily constitute projects that enter into direct competition with banks. But there are indeed technological innovations that are acting as a catalyst for firms that may come to compete with banks in specific segments.

By trading in foreign exchange, in local currencies, by credit extension, by rule making, and by setting interest rates, the general level of economic activity can normally be influenced by the central bank. In so doing, central banks used to try to contribute to peace and prosperity by making sure that the less advantaged or the more useful activities or social class and such like have better access to funds in general or to the funds of the central bank, and in the extreme case even go so far as financing projects and infrastructure. In the modern world, it is now normally agreed that each national economy is so vast and complex that central banks could be considered to have done very well if it just keeps the country stable and let government build infrastructure and help the poor and private sector trade and invest to economically develop the nation. The recent trend is that, central banks are now given the sole task of keeping price stability, and is given the independence to do that since if they have no independence, government will, at time ask it to do things that are in conflict to that sole function.
This group is closely tied to some of the initiatives that are part of the Financial Education Plan (FEP), about which I will also speak. I shall be beginning in a somewhat dismal tone, “dismal” being the label that has been attached to those of us practising as economists since the times of Thomas Carlyle, back in the 19th century. And the situation is that, despite all the efforts made in terms of private initiatives (as exemplified by this EduFin Summit, now in its third edition) and by the public sector [specifically the FEP initiatives under way since 2008 jointly launched by the Banco de España, the CNMV (National Securities Market Commission) and other collaborators], and also despite the general increase in the educational level in Spain, we have not managed to instil the youngest cohorts with better financial literacy than we have the population as a whole. Adult financial literacy in Spain, from an international perspective We are, at least, now in a position to make this diagnosis. This is thanks to the information drawn from the recent Survey of Financial Competences, an initiative of the Banco de España and the CNMV, as part of the FEP. Thus, since last year, our knowledge on the status of Spaniards’ financial literacy and on their interaction with the financial system has improved decisively.

It has been rolled out in educational centres that voluntarily decide to participate in this initiative and to impart financial education. Indeed, some 500 centres each year throughout Spain have taken part. The participant centres have educational material provided by the Plan itself, through the Gepeese portal, so they may be used by teachers according to their own criteria and programmes. Complementing this is specific training for teachers, who are provided with supplementary educational resources (such as games and workshops). There is also an annual competition for participating pupils. In fact, on 1 October 2018 I had the opportunity to congratulate the winners of this competition from a school in Plasencia. In order to gauge the impact of this school programme, inform society of it and seek to continually improve it, an exhaustive evaluation of the programme was conducted in the 2014-2015 academic year.9 The evaluation of the short-term impact of the programme showed that:           Pupils following the financial education course obtained better results in financial literacy tests at the end of the year than pupils who did not. In terms of theme-based content, it was found that the financial education course especially increased pupils’ knowledge in “bank relations” (e.g. opening and closing bank accounts, the consequences of an overdraft and knowledge of bank fees, along with the notion of interest rates and their calculation). The impact of the course was less evident on matters such as saving, means of payment and responsible consumption.
Fourth, the banking industry should undertake effective measures to reduce the number of cash and cheques used for credit card and loan repayments which totalled 101 million transactions in 2014. This would bring about operational  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  efficiency and reduce costs in the banks’ operations. The industry should strive to achieve an annual decline rate of 15% per year similar to that of cheques; v.  Fifth, payment system infrastructure providers such as MEPS and MyClear should enhance their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to ensure any payment infrastructure development initiatives would not result in duplication of efforts by the banking system. In addition, both MEPS and MyClear should develop medium term roadmap to enhance payment system infrastructure to keep pace with innovation and meet user needs. This must be supported by consultation with relevant stakeholders and robust market assessment and cost-benefit analysis; and  vi. Last but not least, it is critical for the banking and payments industry to maintain confidence in the use of e-payments, Hence, the industry should continuously enhance their risk management measures and security features, and review the effectiveness of their customer education and awareness programs. On this note, I wish all of you an engaging and productive forum. Please take the opportunity to visit the exhibition booths to find out more on how you can benefit from the various business and payment solutions. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Lastly, Patricia Mosser, now a Senior Research Scholar here at SIPA, used to work at the New York Fed, and a number of Banque de France staff have had the privilege of working with her over the years. So, Patricia, allow me to thank you warmly for organising this lecture on the ECB’s monetary policy and the resilience of the Eurozone. In Europe, the euro construction process is pretty well-known, while the ECB monetary policy is often debated. In the United States, it may be the reverse: the monetary policy is often better understood than the euro construction process. Thus I will deal successively with both issues before turning to the future and a call for action in Europe. 1. The euro has strong foundations. Political foundations As you know, the single currency was officially launched with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and introduced in 1999. But Maastricht and the euro are naturally part of a broader history: the history of Europe, and its singular achievement of making the transition from war to peace. As early as 1946, Josef Müller, who was a leading figure in the German resistance to the Nazis and the founder of the Bavarian CSU, acknowledged that “we need[ed] a European currency, because countries that share a currency will never be at war”. The euro has indeed provided us with a strong symbol of unity among European nations.
If these factors together imply that what is possible to attain is a long-run employment rate of, say, 75 per cent, it would be meaningless to give the central bank the task of promoting an employment rate of 80 per cent. What monetary policy might be able to do in such a situation is to make the employment rate temporarily reach 80 per cent by overheating the economy. But nothing would be gained by this, as the employment rate would soon return to 75 per cent. However, the overheating, in turn, could cause problems that might be difficult to deal with, such as making inflation expectations rise and creating asset market bubbles. Thus, one cannot give the central bank a numerical target for employment that it should strive to attain in the same way as an inflation target.11 It is sometimes claimed that the Federal Reserve is an example of a central bank with an employment target. Although the Federal Reserve Act states that the Federal Reserve shall “promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates”, this does not mean that it in practice works with a numerical target for employment.12  10  However, there is a research literature on so-called fiscal dominance that suggests that the central bank may experience difficulty steering inflation if public debt is too high. See, for instance, Leeper, Eric, M. and Tack Yun (2006), “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Interactions and the Price Level: Background and Beyond”, International Tax and Public Finance 13(4), pp.

William C Dudley: What kind of jobs have been created during the recovery? Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Regional Economic Press Briefing, New York City, 21 May 2014. *  *  *  Good morning and welcome once again to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Regional Economic Press Briefing. I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you. This morning I want to focus on economic conditions in our region, giving particular attention to the kinds of jobs created in New York, Northern New Jersey and Puerto Rico during the recovery from the Great Recession. As always, what I have to say reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or the Federal Reserve System. While the New York Fed has broad operating responsibilities on behalf of the FOMC and the Federal Reserve System, we are also deeply committed to our region. That commitment manifests itself in several ways. We produce monthly indices of economic activity that enable us to gauge the performance of the region’s economy. We conduct a regular poll of small businesses in our region, and just last week, we hosted a summit examining new sources of credit for small businesses. We developed block-by-block flood maps which were created after Superstorm Sandy to inform residents and businesses in Brooklyn of their vulnerability to future storms.
Our research indicates that the large growth in student debt, and an associated high level of student debt delinquencies, has been associated with a reduction in mortgage and auto loan borrowing among younger people. While younger individuals were previously much more likely to finance home and car purchases by age thirty, Chart 16 (Proportion of Borrowers with Home-secured Debt at Age 30) shows that those with student debt are now less likely to do so than those with no student debt, as shown by Brown and Caldwell in a Liberty Street Economics blog post in 2013.5 In fact, our research suggests that student debt appears to have replaced or crowded out other types of debt, so that the difference in average total debt held by student-loan and non-student-loan borrowers has remained stable over time. We suspect that this decline in taking on other types of debt by student-loan borrowers partly reflects increased uncertainty about the future. However, in addition to a possibly reduced  5  Meta Brown and Sydnee Caldwell (2013), Young Student Loan Borrowers Retreat from Housing and Auto Markets Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Liberty Street Economics blog, April. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  appetite for borrowing, a reduction in access to credit is also likely to play an important role, despite the comparatively high earning potential of those with a college education.

However, as has been the case since October 2009 when the unemployment rate peaked at 10 percent, this decline in the unemployment rate was associated with an almost equal percentage point decline in the labor force participation rate. Much has been written about the forces that are causing this decline of the participation rate. Researchers have shown that the aging of the population is playing a role, as are changes in behavior. But our own analysis suggests that the cyclical weakness of demand  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  for labor is an important contributing factor, and so we do not take as much comfort from the decline of the unemployment rate as we otherwise might. Looking forward, I believe that the underlying fundamentals of the U.S. economy have improved to the point where we can expect sustained growth above the recent pace of 2 1/4 percent. That being said, I doubt that over the near term we will see growth as rapid as that in the second half of last year. Special, one-time factors, such as very rapid growth of exports and sustained inventory building, are unlikely to be repeated over the first half of this year. Moreover, while there is now a much better balance between supply and demand in the housing market, that market is still adjusting to the roughly 100 basis point increase in mortgage interest rates that occurred in mid-2013.
Supervisors need to ensure that cyber security becomes a permanent agenda in the board’s engagements with senior management. There should be on-going dialogue about emerging trends and vulnerabilities, and the measures in place to address them. This would raise awareness of security concerns and ensure that existing cyber security risk management practices are effectively integrated with the firm’s wider business strategy and risk appetite. It is equally important to ensure that the board of directors’ of the financial sector invests adequately in cyber security infrastructure systems and procedures. The amount of funds allocated should commensurate with the nature and scale of an institution’s business activities, and its strategic direction. 65% of respondents in an Ernst and Young survey in 2013 cited an insufficient budget as the primary challenge for information security functions to meet the demands of the business. As supervisors of the financial system, we should require financial institutions to continuously benchmark infrastructure and systems against leading best practices in cyber security. This includes the application of security testing measures to identify key potential vulnerabilities in a financial institution’s information security system. Financial institution ought to take a long term view on this matter. Supervisors can do more to encourage financial institutions to improve the response to evolving threats by ensuring continued access to external and internal expertise necessary to rapidly develop controls and defences that protect critical assets and operations. Today, the lack of skilled resources remains a key barrier to value creation in regard to information security.

Looking further into the future, a more comprehensive legal international framework, such as a treaty, may be useful to empower authorities to bring cyber criminals to justice. Concluding remarks Let me now conclude. The digitisation of the economy and the financial sector is a process that cannot be stopped and we need to embrace it to our benefit. As financial institutions grow bigger and have greater international presence, the nature and extent of cyber risks will continue to expand. Events like this summit help propel the cyber security agenda forward. It is my hope that the sharing of knowledge and experiences here will generate new ideas to stem threats to cyber security. With that, I wish you all a productive and fruitful experience for the next two days. Thank you. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
Our domestic assets are too low and a transfer of foreign reserves would have a negative impact on the Bank’s operations: • •  the SNB would be impeded in conducting its monetary operations (interventions, money market operations) the bank’s profitability and liquidity would diminish drastically. Consequently, a transfer in gold of a part of the valuation gain is the obvious solution. A group of experts has been asked to make an estimate of the excess reserve of the bank. 2.2 The proposals The group of experts has come to the conclusion that a capital corresponding to 1300 tonnes of gold could be withdrawn from the SNB’s balance sheet to be used for other purposes than monetary policy. Of these 1300 tonnes, 500 tonnes are to be set aside for financing the Swiss Foundation for Solidarity previously announced. What to do with the remaining 800 tonnes? A first idea would consist in transferring the remaining excess reserves to a public investment fund having more extensive investment possibilities than the SNB. Currently, our asset management policy is basically limited to fixed-income investments. The fund’s regulations should provide for investment in shares in order to achieve a higher long-term yield. But there is usually no limit to the imagination of politicians when money is to be distributed! Other concrete proposals exist. Some would like the excess gold reserves to be earmarked for specific goals such as improving the capitalisation of our social security schemes or for educational purposes.

Listening to my presentation, you will no doubt have concluded that the process of demonetisation of gold is well under way and that one can reasonably expect that the gold parity of the Swiss franc will be abandoned in the spring of next year. Formally, the demonetisation of gold will give the SNB sufficient room for manoeuvre to become active on the market. Gold transactions could thus be scheduled to begin next year when the legal framework will be in place. Greater uncertainty surrounds the question of the allocation of excess reserves, but this will have no impact on our sales intentions. As no precise date for the beginning of our sales activities could be set, I will limit myself to indicate to you in what spirit we plan to approach this question. In my opinion, two observations seem essential: First, as a major holder of gold, the Swiss National Bank has no interest in adopting a strategy which would push the price down. We know that 1300 tonnes of gold cannot be absorbed by the market in a short period of time. We therefore are considering distributing the sales over a period of several years. Second, we intend to keep important gold holdings. Once the sales programme has come to an end, gold will continue to play an important role in our monetary reserves. The recent revision of the Constitution has led to the stipulation that we should maintain “sufficient” gold reserves.
But unfortunately people offer these things, and it’s really quite tragic, because the people who fall for these things often are people that are not so sophisticated, of not so large means, and they can’t afford to be sending money to fraudsters hoping that there might be a big prize from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York or somewhere else down the road, which of course there’s not. Dr. Olajide Oladipo: Thank you. I think we have – I just have time to take only one more question. Audience Member: Actually, the question I wanted to ask is for the students. Why do you refuse to ask questions? Dr. Olajide Oladipo: Somebody wants to ask now. Thank you. Audience Member: How are you, sir? My question for you today is what are, or were, your daily habits or rituals that helped you get to the level of success that you have today? President Dudley: Oooh, I can’t think of any rituals. Habits. I guess what I would say is I’ve always just tried to learn more. So basically, it’s always about trying to find opportunity to, what I call, grow my human capital. So, I think – my view of the way to success is find a job that’s interesting to you, because you need that passion about what you do. If you don’t have passion about what you do, it’s not going to feel like a lot of fun and you’re not going to do it with a great enthusiasm.

Spain’s global position in terms of innovation and digitalisation Now let me give you some figures on Spain’s relative position in terms of innovation and digitalisation. According to Eurostat10, R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP stood at 2% in the EU in 2017, below the target of 3% of GDP set at “Europe 2020 strategy” and also below US levels (2.8%). Spain’s investment in R&D was lower than the EU average. It only accounted for 1.2% of its GDP in 2017 despite having been growing for the previous three years. According to COTEC11, Spanish companies fund the majority of their investment in R&D, around two thirds, with internally generated resources. Regarding external funding sources, venture capital and private equity are the most relevant ones. Another key element for innovation is the supply of human capital, i.e., the availability of high-skilled workers such as researchers. In this dimension, there is also an important gap between Spain and the EU average. In particular, according to Eurostat12, in 2017 Spain had 0.27 researchers per 100 employees in the private sector, while the EU average was 0.45. Regarding digitalisation, Spain is gradually improving its global position. According to the Digital Economy and Society Index, published by the European Commission13, that tracks the evolution of EU member states in digital competitiveness, Spain ranks 11th among the 28 countries of the European Union. The index comprises five indicators: connectivity, human capital, use of Internet services, integration of digital technology and digital public services.