samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
By country, the decline in activity in the German economy and the stagnation in Italy were notable. Furthermore, the available indicators suggest that the weakness of economic activity in the euro area persisted in the third quarter of the year. Thus, the indicators relating to trade and industrial activity (industrial production, export orders, manufacturing confidence and industrial production expectations) continued to deteriorate. Also, certain survey indicators of activity and employment in services showed a downturn, which may indicate that the weakness is beginning to spread to these activities. The slowdown in employment, along 3/13  with the gradual decline in consumer confidence in the third quarter, points to more modest growth in private consumption, which until now has been the main driver of growth. In this context, the ECB published its macroeconomic projections for the euro area as a whole last week. Projected GDP growth was revised downwards, especially for 2020. Specifically, growth is now projected to be 1.1% in 2019 and 1.2% in 2020, in both cases lower rates than were projected in June. In the medium term, a recovery in activity is expected, underpinned by favourable financial conditions and the slightly expansionary fiscal policy stance, assuming that the political and trade uncertainty gradually dissipates. Notwithstanding this downward revision to the macroeconomic projections, the ECB’s Governing Council stressed that there remain important downside risks to the central scenario, arising mainly from the possibility of a no-deal Brexit and a possible escalation of trade tensions. Inflation in the euro area remains at low levels.

Yet on the other hand, adopting technological innovation may also mean efficiency improvements for banks, although it is true that in the short term adapting to the new way of providing financial services and managing their assets will entail hefty costs for established banks. For society as a whole, the use of new technologies in finance may mean significant advantages in terms of cost savings and financial inclusion. As regulators, we have to promote the adoption of innovation while continuing to treat all participants symmetrically so that regulations governing the same activities are comparable, irrespective of the type of company providing the services. As I mentioned earlier, the decrease in non-productive assets has been one of the main factors which has contributed to the return to profitability of the Spanish banking system in recent years. Nevertheless, although it has decreased significantly, the share of these assets in banks’ balance sheets continues to be historically high and, consequently, banks should take advantage of this point in the cycle to make further progress in this area. Another important challenge for Spanish banks relates to the need for them to achieve reputational improvements. After the economic crisis, litigation increased notably, resulting in sizeable costs for banks which have a negative effect on their profitability. This increase in legal costs is not confined to the Spanish banking system but has also been observed in other jurisdictions.
The chart shows an unweighted average for those institutions in the sample for which data are available on the given day. (b) The “no crisis” institutions are HSBC, Barclays, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Santander, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, BBVA, Banco Popular, Banco Sabadell, Unicredit, Banca Popolare di Milano, Royal Bank of Canada, National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ Banking Group. The chart shows an unweighted average for those banks in the sample for which data are available on the given day. (c) The dotted black line is a suggested trigger level for contingent capital calibrated by minimising a loss function which takes into account both Type I and Type II errors. Type I error is the probability that conversion occurs despite capital not being required. Type II error is the event that conversion does not occur despite capital being required. The loss function places greater weight on Type II errors. Note that the loss function takes into account the full range of banks, not just the average score for each set.

Figure 1 Monetary Policy Interest Rate, Deposit Rate, and Forward Curve (percent) 12  12  10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  Jan.08  May.08  180-day prime deposit rate  Sep.08 MPR  Jan.09 6 month forward rate  Source: Central Bank of Chile  BIS Review 35/2009  5  Figure 2 Lending Rate Spread over MPR and Other Financial Indicators (index, average Jan. 2002-Jul. 2007=1) 4.0  40  3.5  35  3.0  30  2.5  25  2.0  20  1.5  15  1.0  10  0.5  5  0.0  0  02  03  04  05  06  Lending spread over MPR  07  08  VIX (1)  09  Libor - OIS (2)  (1) The VIX index measures implied volatility in the U.S. stock market (2) Libor-OIS spread measures the difference between dollar financing cost for banks around the world and a measure of the expectation of the monetary policy rate in the U.S. Sources: Central Bank of Chile; Bloomberg.
So I had placed myself on the sideline, but I compensated by offering to chair a number of public commissions.” 26 Governor Knut Getz Wold wrote in 1972 that: “Norges Bank’s position today in relation to the government authorities is not, however, defined by a formal right to make decisions on specific issues, but by its role as advisor …”. He went on to say: “Norges Bank has limited direct power. This is as it should be. But it has, and should have, influence. If store is to be set by its word, it must keep abreast of developments at home and abroad. The Storting and the government have the final word. Having said that, Norges Bank will loyally and actively follow up their decisions.” 27 In 1973, the efforts to develop an economy under strong centralised coordination and control culminated in a proposal to establish an incomes policy council with regulation of wages. 28 The proposal was logical. It was the last wall in the structure erected after the war. Coordination and regulation were important key words.

Norman Chan: Hong Kong's development as the premier banking hub in Asia Opening remarks by Mr Norman T L Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the HKMA Conference for Independent Non-Executive Directors (INEDs), Hong Kong, 16 March 2017. * * * Fellow INEDs, Ladies and Gentlemen, 1. Good morning and a very warm welcome to all of you to the inaugural Annual Conference of INEDs of banks in Hong Kong! Today is a very special day for us because it is the first time in Hong Kong’s banking history that we have gathered in one place over 100 INEDs, which represents 82% of the total INED population of 123. 2. Today is also special because it marks an important milestone of the development of Hong Kong as the premier banking hub in Asia. 3. In case you do not know already, the size of Hong Kong’s banking sector, as measured in the amount of banking assets, has exceeded $ trillion by end of 2016. This equals to 8 times of Hong Kong’s GDP, which is a powerful manifestation of Hong Kong’s position as an international banking centre. Having said that, one of the things that we have learnt from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008: Big is not necessarily Beautiful. The bitter lessons of some of the aspiring financial centres such as Ireland and Iceland are clear and brutal reminder of the risks of pursuing fast expansion of the financial sector without giving proper attention to supervision and governance.
Conduct regulators – such as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) – have taken an early lead in seeking to ensure that standards for financial advice and services offered are upheld, and that the integrity of the financial system is protected. Second, the twin imperatives of greater inclusion and more competition point to the value of digital identities. Billions of people are still under-or unbanked across advanced and emerging economies. 11  And as the FSB  and others have highlighted, some countries are at risk of being cut off from the global financial system as major correspondent banks withdraw. 12  New technologies are providing solutions. Already, biometrics and cryptography are being used to validate customer identities in consistent and reliable ways, facilitating access to the financial system and reducing AML and CFT due diligence costs. For example, since 2010, the Indian government has issued more than 800 million such identities, such that at least four out of five citizens can now use them to make use of governmental and financial services. 10  Oliver Wyman and Santander estimated that distributed ledger technology could reduce banks’ infrastructure costs attributable to cross-border payments, securities trading and regulatory compliance by $ per annum by 2022. See: https://santanderinnoventures.com/fintech2/ 11 Some 2 billion adults lack a bank account worldwide. 10 million US households and 1.5 million UK adults are also unbanked.

I have been informed by the Chairman of Equity Capital Resources (ECR) Plc that the Company intends to list ECRUT on the stock exchange in the near future. When this commendable intention is achieved, ECRUT will be the first collective investment scheme to be publicly traded on the Stock Exchange in Zambia. With the calibre of men and women behind this investment vehicle, I am confident this will be achieved in the required time frame. When that time comes we want to turn back to this day and say “we were part of the birth of ECRUT”. The existence of the ECRUT shall provide means of resource mobilisation, bringing on board a collection of individual participation in the capital and money markets. This vehicle will  BIS Review 48/2008  1  facilitate the participation of investors who previously were not capable of participating in highly denominated securities in the financial sector. Ladies and Gentlemen, before I end my speech, let me quickly touch on an important aspect of collective investment schemes, that is, investor confidence in the managers and the industry itself. I believe by far this is the most important factor in whether a scheme can attract and maintain long-term investors. There must be a strong regulatory framework. Whereas there is a strong regulatory body in the Securities and Exchange Commission that vigorously administers the law to protect investors, fund managers must be committed to strong self-regulation and exercise professional ethics to the best interests of investors. This, Chairperson, is fundamental.
In the euro area, they are equivalent to 1.7% of GDP and are expected, according to the IMF, to contribute to raising growth by 0.9 point in 2009 and 0.3 point in 2010. Fourthly, governments’ very strong commitment to guaranteeing the solvency of banks should prevent risks of a credit crunch. In France, the two structures set up, the Société de financement de l’économie française (SFEF) and the Société de prises de participation de  BIS Review 75/2009  1  l’Etat (SPPE), give the government considerable room for manoeuvre to recapitalise the banking sector and ensure its financing, and thereby that of the economy. Last, but not least, the 325-basis-point decline in the ECB’s refinancing rate since July 2008 is unprecedented, both in terms of size and speed. In an environment characterised by fixed rates, the effects of this decrease shall spread progressively, but rates on new loans are already falling, in line with the cuts in policy rates. In addition, the ECB has embarked on a quantitative easing policy aimed at banks, which, by contrast with the United States, provide 80% of the financing of the economy. Since October 2008, the ECB has been providing unlimited liquidity and has eased collateral rules for its refinancing operation. At its May meeting, the Governing council has decided to extend the maturity of its provision of liquidity up to one year and to purchase euro-denominated covered bonds issued in the euro area.

As part of its mandate, the Committee undertakes an objective review on the legislation and proposes the necessary amendments on existing Malaysian laws which are applicable to execute the whole chain of Islamic financial practices. Since its inception, the Law Harmonisation Committee has reviewed seventeen (17) laws in Malaysia and identified the areas that require legislative amendments so that Islamic financial transactions can be conducted in the most legally efficient manner. The work of the Committee will continue to remain relevant as the Islamic financial markets continue to expand and develop new products and business models. This mandate of the Committee will not only ensure that non-Shariah compliant elements in the legal provisions are harmonised, it will also ensure that our laws are facilitative to Islamic financial transactions. Another major milestone in Malaysia, is the new legal framework for Islamic banking and takaful, which is currently undergoing the legislative process towards its enactment. This new legal framework, will not only streamline the legal requirements across sectors, but will also ensure that the law is reflective of the nature and features of Shariah contracts and that the degree of regulation is commensurate with the level of risks that Islamic financial institutions, markets and products pose to the overall financial system. The greater clarity on the legal and prudential requirements underpinned by Shariah principles will enable participants of the Islamic financial system to align to their practices and expectations accordingly when undertaking Islamic financial business and transactions.
Well, returning for a moment to our earlier discussion. The owners, now in the form of hundreds of thousands of shareholders, have only limited “skin in the game”. Their personal or family wealth, outside of their bank shares, is not at stake if the bank fails and they can now in most cases exit from their shareholdings swiftly through trading on a stock exchange. So their perspectives can now be much shorter-term and, as they alone benefit from increases in a firm’s “value”, they may actually favour greater risk-taking to maximise share price valuation in that shorter-term. This “short-termism” mindset is more pronounced amongst some asset managers and hedge funds, which in recent years would appear to have accumulated increasing amounts of bank shares and become more proactive in  3  Capitalist Fools. Joseph E Stiglitz January 2009 (The Great Hangover: 21 Tales of the New Recession from the Pages of Vanity Fair). BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  exerting pressure on bank management. As these asset managers are themselves rewarded on the basis of the annual valuation of their funds’ holdings, including the bank shares, they have every incentive to push the banks to achieve higher profitability. So board directors and senior management were, and still are, under constant pressure to pursue higher RoEs. It is not difficult to see why capital raising, which improves the resilience of banks, is often rejected or delayed as it is negative for share prices in the short term. The result?

But to innovate, in digital technology, or in energy transition for example, companies need to be able to take more risks, which requires more equity financing, over the long term, rather than debt financing. The euro area is seriously lagging behind in this respect: equity capital amounted to only 73% of GDP in 2017, compared with 123% in the United States. As for resources, let’s take what is often a difficult debate – on Germany’s substantial surpluses – and transform it into a positive: we have abundant savings in the euro area. In order to match resources to needs, I propose a European-level “Financing Union for Investment and Innovation", which would better channel the EUR 350 billion savings surplus into equity financing and innovation, in digital or energy technologies. This Union should bring together existing initiatives, and as a priority, the Capital Markets Union, but also the Banking Union and the Juncker Investment Plan. The Capital Markets Union requires concrete progress on several fronts: amending accounting rules, taxes and insolvency laws to facilitate cross-border investment, notably in equity capital; and developing pan-European long-term savings products. Within the Governing Council, and together with my colleague Jens Weidmann, President of the Bundesbank, we find it most regrettable that the Capital Markets Union is currently being overlooked in political discussions on enhancing the euro area. My second idea to make progress in Europe is to start with the quality of public spending and give priority to investment and expenditure for the future.
Another is that, in an environment where investors are chasing yield, collecting the premium income from writing options has become a prevalent way of sustaining returns in the hope that nothing too bad happens; and that if it does, today’s liquid capital markets will contain the volatility anyway. In other words, they base their explanation on what has been going in the financial system. Financial system uncertainties Big, perhaps fundamental, changes have been underway in banking and capital markets for a few years now, with implications for how we gauge money and credit conditions, and assess the resilience of the financial system as a whole. Discussions typically jump to the second, financial stability issue. But I want to look first at some monetary indicators in the light of these structural changes. Broad money growth As has recently attracted a good deal of attention, UK broad money is up around 15% on a year ago, and more than 25% since the beginning of 2005 – much more than elsewhere in the G7 (Chart 6). Of this increase, almost half – or around £ – is accounted for by the money holdings of so-called Other Financial Corporations13. Central bankers have to ask whether that represents a threat to inflation and stability or, rather, a shift in the demand for money that is a symptom of structural change in the financial system.

It is worth remembering, in this  BIS Review 23/2002  3  context, that there is no reason why a cash changeover should have to be made at the start of a year, for practical reasons it would be better implemented in March or October. Another alternative described in the report is known as "Big Bang", i.e. to begin a cash changeover at the same time as the krona exchange rate is fixed and full membership of the monetary union occurs. This scenario requires a preparation period of 2-2.5 years. This makes the demand that the euro can be handled in all transactions in Sweden, both physical and electronic, and by everyone in Sweden, from the corner tobacconist to the National Swedish Social Insurance Board and the major banks from the first day of membership. As this alternative involves a simultaneous changeover in IT systems, other practicalities such as accounting and payment of taxes, as well as a physical cash changeover, it makes high demands on co-ordination and information. Taking into account the longer preparation period prior to the actual EMU membership required in this alternative, it would take longer until Sweden could fully participate in all forums for co-operation and decision-making within the monetary union than would be the case with a gradual transition process. The advantage of this scenario is that it would avoid uncertainty arising among the general public over the position of the euro during the transition period in that the euro could be used everywhere immediately.
They have revealed that the entities have generally taken preventive measures. Transparency and publication of information were subject to reforms in 2011 and aimed at establishing a more appropriate business climate for banks and providing higher protection to the public. Banks, on their side, have responded positively by adapting their internal regulatory framework in line with these changes. Further improvement is needed to enhance the transparency with regard to credit agreements, which have been a source of customer complaint and on focus of examinations on transparency and corrective measures taken by the Bank of Albania. The practices for deposit and account estimation, as well as disclosure and addressing of customer complaints are generally regarded as less problematic. Supervision of non-bank financial institutions is also a functional part of the Bank of Albania. Their number amounted to 19, from 17 a year earlier; their specific share remained unchanged, accounting for 3.1% of banking system assets. During 2011, their activity posted moderate growth with regard to total assets, loan portfolio and financial profit. Overall, non-bank financial institutions have adhered to regulatory framework and supervision standards. However, on-site examinations have identified several problems, thereby making appropriate recommendations related to them. Among them, we would highlight the need to: improve lending process; revise internal regulatory framework; enhance transparency to clients, etc. The expansion dynamics of the financial sector activity is reflected in the licensing process.

Conform to institutional commitments, the Bank of Albania has regularly contributed to reporting according to respective chapters of the acquis communautaire, reflecting the progress achieved on the approximation of Albanian regulatory framework to EU legislation and attainment of European standards. With regard to Bank of Albania’s activity, the EC in its Progress Report of October for Albania, inter alia, commented positively that the monetary policy has successfully helped in keeping inflation stable and the banking sector remains well-capitalised and liquid. Implementation of the EU-funded Twinning Project of the Bank of Albania with the Bank of Italy in partnership with the Bank of France started in 2011. This project, which covers the major part of Bank of Albania’s activities, will help in enhancing institutional capacities, approximating the regulatory framework and work practices of the Bank of Albania to those of the EU and ECB, as well as promoting the development of financial market and instruments at home.   Promoting payment system  Fulfilling its legal responsibility for a smooth functioning of payment systems, in 2011, the Bank of Albania actively worked to strengthen the payment systems oversight, improve the technology infrastructure and develop new payment products in Albania. Both main payment systems, AIPS (for settling large-value payments) and AECH (for settling and clearing small-value payments) operated with full efficiency, reflecting the stability of the systems.