samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
There has been a clear endeavour to counter the upward price tendency. In my opinion, however, it would have been an advantage if management of the exchange rate had been clearly assigned to the central bank, instead of the leaving the responsibility to so many. As regards fiscal policy, experience has not been entirely positive. As I mentioned earlier, in Stage Three of EMU the Stability Pact is monitored with annual stability programmes. This process has worked fairly well in exerting peer pressure on countries with large deficits: no country has yet exceeded the Pact’s lower limit. But assessments of individual countries have tended to differ without there always being factual grounds for this. Neither has particularly good use been made of the golden opportunity that Europe’s present economic upswing provides for faster budget consolidation. Countries should now be making the most of the chance of quickly turning a deficit into a surplus but that is not happening. This may prove to be unfortunate further ahead and it runs counter to the spirit of the Pact. Peer pressure has evidently not been strong enough. Examples of short-run considerations gaining the upper hand in this respect were evident when the dramatic oil price rise led several countries to cut petroleum taxes or subsidise oil-intensive industries, which is hardly sustainable in the longer run for either the economy or the environment. Before concluding I should also like to say something about financial stability in the EU area.

The Rt Hon Sir Edward George GBE: Overview of recent financial and economic developments in Iran  Speech by The Rt Hon Sir Edward George GBE, Governor of the Bank of England, at the Iran Invest 2000 Conference, held in London, on 28 September 2000. *  *  *  I am delighted to be able to take part in this conference, and particularly pleased to be sharing the platform this morning with Governor Mohsen Nourbakhsh of the Central Bank of Iran, Bank Markazi. I first met Governor Nourbakhsh soon after he became Governor in 1994 - which was not an easy time for Iran. I was immediately impressed not only by his command of the issues confronting him - which was perhaps not surprising: it was his second period in office as Governor, having in the meantime taken a vacation as Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, and as Deputy to the President, with responsibility for Economic Affairs. But I was immediately impressed too by his calm and always reasoned approach and by his reliability. He has played an important role in steering his country through a difficult period to the more promising prospect that Iran faces today. Since our first meeting, I have very much enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the Governor periodically at a whole series of international meetings, and it is a very great pleasure, Mohsen, to be able to join in welcoming you here to London this morning.
The economic distress and the extraordinary uncertainty about the future course of the pandemic have set off a tidal wave of flows of money away from riskier investments to the safety of cash. This sudden shift led to an evaporation of liquidity and breakdowns in the functioning of key 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  financial markets. This includes the market for U.S. Treasury securities, the cornerstone of the global financial system. These developments, if left unchecked, threaten to starve our economy of the credit that it badly needs during this difficult time. The Response Last month, as the risks posed by the coronavirus became increasingly apparent, the Federal Reserve took swift and decisive action to support the economy and stabilize financial markets. In two unscheduled meetings in the first half of March, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) quickly brought the target range for the federal funds rate to near zero.1 The FOMC also signaled that it expects to keep interest rates at this level until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve the Fed’s maximum employment and price stability goals.2 These monetary policy actions serve two purposes. First, low interest rates make it easier for households and businesses to meet their borrowing needs during this time of economic stress. Second, they foster broader financial conditions that will help promote the rebound in spending and investment needed to return the economy to full strength.

The significant increase in the share of OIC member states in our exports might be, at first sight, attributed only to the economic slowdown in the European Union. However, related figures indicate that the share of OIC members in Turkey’s exports had already increased from 13% to 19% between 2000 and 2007 before the start of the global financial crisis. Besides, visa exemptions probably played an important role in the recent improvement in Turkey’s trade with the region’s countries. Distinguished Guests, Regional collaborations have made a significant contribution to the increase in the volume of intra-emerging markets trade. Although tradable products can be transported to markets of any distance owing to advancements in transportation infrastructure and technology worldwide, distance is no less important than it was previously. Due to increased competition among countries, factors such as distance and transportation costs continued to be among the leading determinants of competitiveness. Various academic studies also confirm that the distance elasticity of trade is on the rise. As it is known, complementary value added chains have been formed particularly among Asian countries, and having benefited from the proximity of neighbor countries and their individual advantages in different fields, these countries have experienced a high-speed development process through regional cooperation, where low-costs-for-all have boosted the competitiveness of all economies in the region.
Asset quality also began to show initial signs of deterioration as would be expected given the fall in property prices and the increased strain put upon the cash flow of the affected companies and their employees. BIS Review 32/2003  1  From mid-May however the operating environment of the banks improved as SARS was brought under control. It would be premature to say that the SARS effect has dissipated entirely. In particular, the full effects on asset quality may take some time to show through. But most of the banks that we have talked to are now saying that the impact of the specific factor of SARS on their results for 2003 is expected to be relatively mild. However, the underlying problems in the economy, which SARS helped to magnify, are still with us. Thus, while the balance sheets of the banks remain strong, the earnings outlook for 2003 remains uncertain; and the banks continue to face a number of challenges. One of these is the state of the property market. The heavy reliance of the banks on property lending is well known: residential mortgage lending, in particular, accounts for 35% of the total domestic loans of the retail banks. Property prices have fallen sharply since the Asian Crisis, and the effect of SARS was to produce a further downward spiral. In the three months from March to May, property prices are estimated to have fallen by 8%.

While they were able to cope with the impact of SARS without major disruption, a certain amount of improvisation had to take place, and lessons were learned that should be incorporated into business continuity plans for the future. But the main point is that the banks did meet the immediate test posed by SARS, and for that management and staff deserve our congratulations. The banks have now been able to wind down their emergency arrangements, but the effects of SARS on their financial performance in 2003 will linger for a bit longer, albeit the impact is now much more muted than at the height of the outbreak. Despite the underlying economic difficulties, the banks actually managed to turn in quite a good performance in the first quarter of the year. Profits of the retail banks in aggregate rose compared with the same period of 2002, helped by increased fee income, higher treasury profits, reduced operating costs and a lower bad debt charge. Towards the end of the quarter, and going into April, SARS began to have an impact of increasing intensity. The demand for bank loans, which was already not very buoyant, slumped even further; credit card spending plummeted as consumers cut back on shopping and entertainment and tourists disappeared; and branch traffic dried up, hampering the efforts of the banks to market their products.
On this note, it is my pleasure to congratulate the Commerce Group on the official launch of Commerce Takaful Berhad. Significant potential exists for Commerce Takaful Berhad to achieve a quantum leap by leveraging on the integrated financial services and extensive operating infrastructure of the Commerce Group. I wish the Board of Director and the management of Commerce Takaful Berhad every success in this endeavour and I look forward to its contribution towards further development of the Islamic financial services industry in Malaysia. Dengan lafaz Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, "Commerce Takaful Berhad". saya  dengan  sukacitanya  merasmikan  pelancaran  Terima kasih. BIS Review 31/2006  3

In Malaysia, this has been addressed through the establishment of an effective rate of return framework, which provides a standard methodology for deriving the rate of return on deposits. The Profit Equalisation Reserve has been provided in the rate of return framework for Islamic financial institutions, which serves as a mechanism to mitigate the impact of the fluctuations in the rates of return. The reserve is appropriated from the gross income and is shared by both the depositors and the banking institution. Given the dual banking environment, as the one in Malaysia, the ability to maximize risk-adjusted returns on investment and sustain stable and competitive returns is an important element in ensuring the competitiveness of the Islamic banking system. From the regulatory perspective, the rate of return framework provides a means of assessing the efficiency of Islamic banking institutions, its profitability, management competency and fairness. To further protect Islamic depositors, the Malaysia Deposit Insurance Corporation has established a separate deposit insurance scheme based on Islamic principles. Disclosure of the true and fair value of the Islamic banking operations in the financial statements is also essential for depositors to undertake a true and fair assessment of the bank's performance. The enhanced financial disclosures need to be complemented with customer education and awareness programs to elevate the level of financial literacy among the consumers and businesses.
The LIFI area is currently is responsible for roughly the top 23 foreign firms based here in New York with the largest U.S. presence (outside of the four firms that are covered in our Complex Financial Institutions portfolio); and, the RCFI unit is responsible for the remaining large group of smaller foreign firms. Our rationale for making this change was three-fold: First, we wanted to better tailor our supervisory approaches to the firms in each of these portfolios. •  In this regard, the LIFI portfolio approach will use a combination of on-site and offsite monitoring over the course of the year, as well as examinations – but the program will evolve over time as the rules are finalized for applying enhanced prudential standards for FBOs. •  The RCFI approach will largely be point-in-time examinations, using, where possible, a more streamlined process, more off-site analysis, and continued coordination with our colleagues at the other supervisory agencies. Second, we wanted to leverage the portfolio approach to ensure better dialogue with supervised firms, as well as to develop better cross-firm metrics and benchmarks that we can use to evaluate firms and to provide more robust feedback on key issues. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  And, third, it provides an opportunity to realize efficiencies across our supervisory activities, with similarly sized (and similar complexity) organizations examined by a common core of examiners; this also gives us more targeted training and development for our staff.

An appropriate balance must be found between a sound production process with adequate controls and safeguards on the one hand, and cost-efficiency for contributing banks on the other hand. Also it is important that regulation is uniformly applied and enforced within the EU to avoid risks of further fragmentation in the money markets, and that international coordination is sought. In the longer term, a broader overhaul can be conceived, involving changes in the calculation methodology and possibly other changes to reflect the structural changes that have taken place in terms of the functioning of the money market since the onset of the crisis, such as the shift towards secured transactions. However, this process should be primarily driven by the market, based on the needs of end-users, while being supported by the public sector. In light of the fundamental importance of money market reference rates, we are closely following the developments taking place as regards the shrinking number of panel members for establishing EURIBOR and EONIA rates. Given the authorities’ commitment to addressing the shortcomings revealed in the rate-setting process, it is in the interest of markets that banks remain in the panel while the regulatory framework is being amended and behave as responsible market participants, thus preventing potential disruption in the functioning of an important financial market segment. Related to the shift of money market transactions to the secured segment is the use of central counterparties (CCPs). 8 In 2012, CCP repo transactions accounted for 55% of all repo transactions (up from 50% in 2010).
On the contrary, the establishment of the NordicBaltic Cross-Border Stability Group has been an ongoing process for quite some time now. It started already in 2007 when we carried out a Nordic-Baltic crisis management exercise. By trying to manage an imaginary crisis using actual banks and applying the institutional and regulatory structures of the different countries, we learnt from one another and realised the importance of working together. Cooperation does not come by itself. It requires initiatives and continuous backing. And it takes time. Still, as far as I can see it is currently the only viable way forward in trying to deal with problems arising from cross-border banking in a way that does not lead to a backlash in European financial integration. What I have said today is fairly uncontroversial both in terms of the analysis of the challenges arising from cross-border banking and the need for joint action. However, despite the fact  22  BIS Review 82/2010  that opting for national solutions has proved to be a costly strategy in this crisis, some countries still seem to prefer going along this path. I think that is a mistake. I think that at the end of that path awaits financial disintegration with strongly negative consequences for future growth prospects. Concluding remarks Let me briefly summarize my main points. The structure of the financial services industry has gone through major changes over the past decades.

The moral hazard problems generated by banks being “too big to fail” are of course very important and we need to find ways to deal with them. But the nature of these problems is different from the one created by banks’ cross-border operations. Just because the biggest banks conduct foreign operations, it is not necessarily the foreign  17  The disagreement between Iceland, on the one hand, and the UK and the Netherlands, on the other, began in October 2008 when Landsbanki failed and was placed into receivership by the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority and the Icelandic government made clear that it would not compensate depositors in the UK and the Netherlands with Icesave accounts. The British and Dutch governments unilaterally decided to refund savers in their respective countries. Thereafter they entered into negotiations with the Icelandic government demanding repayment of the refunds corresponding to the EU guarantee. Still today no agreement has been reached. 18  It is a general phenomenon that firms with foreign operations tend to be relatively big and this phenomenon can be explained as the outcome of a selection process where only the most productive firms find it profitable to pay the sunk fixed costs associated with entering new markets through foreign affiliates (see e.g. Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple, (2004)). 20  BIS Review 82/2010  operations that are the problem.
There is a reasonable debate about what is culture, but that is not a debate about whether it is important. In my view, culture is a product of a wide range of contributory forces: the stance and effectiveness of management and governance, including that well used phrase “the tone from the top”; the structure of remuneration and the incentives it creates; the quality and effectiveness of risk management; and as important as tone from the top, the willingness of people throughout the organisation to enthusiastically adopt and adhere to that tone. Out of this comes an overall culture. It is not something that has a tangible form. As supervisors, we cannot go into a firm and say “show us your culture”. But we can, and do, tackle firms on all the elements that contribute to defining culture, and from that we build a picture of the culture and its determinants. Culture has a major influence on the outcomes that matter to us as regulators. My assessment of recent history is that there has not been a case of a major prudential or conduct failing in a firm which did not have among its root causes a failure of culture as manifested in governance, remuneration, risk management or tone from the top. Culture has thus laid the ground for bad outcomes, for instance where management are so convinced of their rightness that they hurtle for the cliff without questioning the direction of travel.

In short, the banking sector will have to live with a structure of higher financial costs, which will squeeze the net interest margin and, therefore, the capacity to generate revenues. This situation, common to all financial institutions at the international level, may be partly relieved in Spain, insofar as a high percentage of the financing of Spanish institutions is granted at a variable rate, which allows them to adjust interest rates more rapidly to the general market risk premium, helping to keep their interest rate spreads more stable. The second challenge is lower demand for credit both from households and businesses. The lower demand for credit is a natural response to a weaker economic climate than in previous years. However, this response will be larger in the case of those economic agents who, after years of very notable growth in their indebtedness, have begun a process of financial deleverage. For banks, this will mean a smaller volume of activity, that is to say, slower growth or even contraction of their business. In the past, banks responded to narrowing margins (income less financial costs) by increasing their volume of lending. However, this lever will not be available in the coming years, or at least not with the same strength, since lending can be expected to continue to decelerate, and to grow at below the economy’s nominal growth rate. Also, a smaller volume of activity puts further pressure on results, since overheads cannot be spread across a larger volume of activity.
Svein Gjedrem: The economic situation, global uncertainty and monetary policy Speech by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at a conference of the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund 2008, Sandefjord, 16 April 2008. The text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The address is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 13 March and in Monetary Policy Report 1/08 and NBIM Annual Report 2007. *  *  *  There has been turbulence in global financial markets since last summer. What began as isolated losses in a small segment of the US housing market has gradually had substantial spillover effects in the global financial system. Uncertainty and the fear of further losses are still reflected in the markets. It has also become increasingly evident that the turbulence will result in weaker global growth. Only a week ago, the IMF presented forecasts for global growth that were clearly weaker than those presented just a few months earlier. So far, the direct consequences of the turbulence have been limited in Norway. However, continued turmoil and weaker global growth will affect the Norwegian economy. I will return to this later. Let me begin with some brief remarks about the current situation in the Norwegian economy.

There is little risk that its owners will make substantial withdrawals from the Fund over short periods. Other funds or individual investors may for various reasons have to reduce their holdings or pull out of capital markets at an unfavourable time. This may be because the investments are leveraged or that a fund is subject to regulatory constraints or simply that a long-term strategy is influenced by short-term assessments. In addition to its large size and long future life, the Fund is not earmarked for particular obligations unlike traditional pension funds. As a result, the Fund has a higher risk-bearing  4  BIS Review 45/2008  capacity than other comparable funds. The Pension Fund can thus a larger extent invest in financial instruments that may vary more in value, but provide a higher expected return, which in practice means investing in equities. The allocation to equities will now increase from 40 to 60 per cent. If returns vary across different markets and market segments, spreading investments can improve the trade-off between risk and return. This is why the Fund is expanding its portfolio, not only in terms of its geographic exposure, but also the depth of its investments in individual markets. The Fund’s strategy results in a very broad market exposure. This limits the Fund’s exposure to large losses on individual investments or group of investments that are influenced by the same or closely related risk factors. Losses on individual investments or main groups of investments will offset each other in a well diversified portfolio.