samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Short-term deflation risks  To discuss deflation risks in the euro area, it is useful to begin with a definition. Deflation is a decline in the general level of prices as measured by an index of consumer prices. 3 This decline affects most, if not all, prices in the economy. It has to be persistent – and last for an extended period of time, say, at least a year. And it has to be entrenched in agents’ expectations. As the chart (slide 2) indicates, euro area inflation - measured in terms of rate of change of the price level over the previous 12 months - has declined sharply from a peak of 4% in July of last year to 0% in May, the lowest rate since the beginning of Monetary Union. It is widely expected to dip into negative territory this month and is likely to remain there for most of the summer. However, although such rates of inflation are clearly below our definition of price stability, they do not exemplify deflation as we have just defined it. 4 For one thing, this spell of negative inflation is mainly driven by price developments in two sectors, energy and food, and it is the temporary result of the steep rises and sharp falls in oil and food commodity prices last year. Excluding energy and food, there is little sign of widespread price cuts so far; the rate of inflation remains between 1% and 2%. Overall, there are no signs of a generalised reduction in prices.

It is my hope, therefore, that you will include on your agenda issues to do with ICT solutions to address financial inclusion for sustainable development. Let me now turn my attention to another key issue that I expect delegates to discuss at this Conference. This relates to the crucial role that the SADC IT Forum plays in the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), which is the SADC long-term (15-Year) Strategy. It is envisaged that the Committee of Central Bank Governors (CCBG) in SADC will continue to work on the process of monetary and financial integration in the region. In order to meet this aspiration, there is a need to harmonise central banking practices and procedures across the SADC region and benchmark these against international best practices. I therefore trust that this Conference will seek to prepare a RISDP Action Plan which will steer ICTs within the SADC region to higher levels. Equally important, I also expect that this initiative will assist central banks to harmonise ICT functions and come up with shared regional communication infrastructures that promote economic development. Distinguished Delegates, at this juncture let me also thank representatives of the hardware and software suppliers for coming to this Conference. These are our partners and the technologies that have been implemented in our central banks would not have been possible without their technical advice, expertise and innovation.
In the three Baltic countries the improvement was even more dramatic, averaging 17 percentage points since 2007. The composition of adjustment has also been encouraging. Aside from Ireland and, to some extent, the Baltics, import compression played a strong role in closing current account deficits in the first phase of the crisis. But since 2012, improvements in deficit countries have been driven predominantly by robust growth in exports. The previous dramatic fall in internal demand in stressed countries had in fact not only depressed imports. It had pushed firms to look for new international markets as well.1 Demand for exports in deficit countries has also been supported by intra-euro area rebalancing. In particular, though Germany continues to run a record overall current account surplus, its trade surplus vis-à-vis the euro area has diminished. It fell from close to 4% of GDP in late 2007 to around 1% of GDP today.2 Imports from the euro area have also increased notably. In this sense there has been some symmetry in the adjustment process. 1  See Bobeica, E., Esteves, P.S., Rua, A. and Staehr, K. (2015), “Exports and domestic demand pressure: a dynamic panel data model for the euro area countries”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 1777. 2  Bundesbank trade balance data corrected for the so-called “Rotterdam effect”, that is, the fact that German intra-area imports are “inflated” by imports from (mainly) the Netherlands which are actually imports from countries outside the euro area.

Payments are vital to any real economy and in total nearly 40 billion payments were made in the UK in 2018.4 They are also at the heart of the financial system. This makes London the perfect location for a payments conference, which is focused on “thriving in a hyper-connected world”. Payments are innovating, fast. From the infrastructure and the messages that support each transaction, to new players entering the market and consumers seeking new ways to pay for goods and services. Future of Finance, Future of Payments  While the core mission for the Bank of England is maintaining monetary and financial stability, we also seek to enable innovation and empower competition in the financial system. To support our forward looking and dynamic approach we recently commissioned and responded to the Future of Finance report.5 It considered how financial services might evolve over the next decade, and what this could mean for each of us: for users, the system and the Bank itself. The report highlighted that a new economy and new demographics demand a new financial system. This system must be resilient, fair and dynamic. We have prioritised five areas of work: we are enhancing the payments system for the digital age; we will champion a platform to boost access to finance for small businesses; we will support the transition to a carbon-neutral economy; we will develop a world-class regtech and data strategy; and we will facilitate firms’ use of technology.
Remarks at the Banking Standards Board Panel “Worthy of trust? Law, ethics and culture in banking” Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England  Bank of England Conference Centre 21 March 2017  1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  It is a pleasure to host this Banking Standards Board event “Worthy of trust? Law, ethics and culture in banking” and to join this distinguished panel. Over the past decade, banking has suffered twin crises of solvency and legitimacy. The first is being addressed by comprehensive reforms. As a consequence, large banks are now stronger, more liquid, and more focused. 1  This immense progress has been overshadowed by a crisis of legitimacy. A series of scandals ranging from mis-selling to manipulation have undermined trust in banking, the financial system, and, to some degree, markets themselves. 2  Multiple factors contributed to a tide of ethical drift. Market standards were poorly understood, often ignored and lacked teeth. Too many participants neither felt responsible for the system nor recognised the full impact of their actions. Bad behaviour went unchecked, proliferated and eventually became the norm. The economic consequences have been enormous. Global banks’ misconduct costs have now reached over $ billion – capital that could otherwise have supported up to $ trillion of lending to households and businesses. 3  But there is a bigger cost. An industry the scale and importance of finance needs social capital as well as economic capital.

At least in the run up to the crisis, some invested in levered paper, some of it in what amounted  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  to Russian Doll shadow banking – a money fund buys short-term ABCP backed by CDOs, etc. What I suggest here is that:   Money Market Funds should be required to choose between being –  Variable Net Asset Value (NAV) funds or Constant NAV funds  –  Any remaining CNAV funds should be subject to capital requirements of some kind  –  All should be subject to “gates” or other measures that can be used to delay withdrawals, to make runs less likely. That package would not completely prevent runs; regular mutual funds can suffer runs. But it would make them somewhat less brittle. Europe should want a global standard or at least a globally consistent approach to money funds. Much the largest money-fund industry in the world is based in the US. But it is not confined to domestic, US intermediation. It is internationally active – lending to banks, corporates and sovereigns around the world. That underlines the importance of the outcome of the deliberations of the SEC and of the US Financial Stability Oversight Counsel in this area. We have to hope that the US authorities will take action – making not only their own domestic financial system safer, but the global system safer.
We are pleased to note that the World Bank Ease of Doing Business team is finally making serious efforts to understand our national specificities. The Central Bank urges and supports Government’s ongoing efforts to take the Ease of Doing Business conditions to a new level. Of course, it would be unforgivable of me not to seize this opportunity to urge the consultancy community to ensure that the information we provide to international competitiveness ranking agencies is up to date and factually correct. I also take this opportunity to observe that in 2018, Malta will undergo a comprehensive and detailed analysis of its financial sector through a Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) conducted by the International Monetary Fund. At the same time, Malta will be evaluated against international standards on Anti-Money Laundering and CounterTerrorism Financing (AML/CFT) by MONEYVAL as part of the Council of Europe’s peer review process. We are eagerly looking forward to both. Our economy has managed to outperform because we managed to evolve and diversify rapidly. I believe that our financial services and banking sector needs to mirror this, to continuously evolve and adapt to the changing economy. After the success of recent years, we are now in an excellent position to solidify our gains. This requires us all to focus our glance further into the future, and to devote a greater share of current economic prosperity towards financing more long-term projects. If we do not, we run the risk of undermining our own future prosperity.

However, as mentioned, real GDP may behave more positively in the short term than in the Stability Programme. As regards the budget, the path projected for the overall general government deficit is in line with the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact: declining from 3.1% of GDP in 2017, to 2.2% in 2018 and 1.3% of GDP in 2019. In 2020 a budget deficit of 0.5% of GDP is projected. This path of reduction of Spain’s budget deficit needs to be achieved if the excessive deficit situation (a deficit of more than 3% of GDP) is to end in 2018. Public debt, according to the Stability Programme, is expected to fall gradually, to reach 92.5% of GDP in 2020. In the current environment of high economic growth and low general government financing costs, the budget consolidation required to achieve the deficit targets for the period 20172020 (as measured by the change in the primary structural balance) is relatively small. The Stability Programme includes the stability objectives for 2017 – for each sub-heading of public expenditure – that were approved by Parliament in December last year and extends them to 2020; then, budget balance is projected for all levels of general government, except the Social Security system, which would still record a deficit of 0.5% of GDP. Central government, which currently has the largest deficit, will be responsible for making the bulk of the projected adjustment.
Word trade index, volume, Index 2005 = 100, seasonally-adjusted data 150  150 World trade index Forecast IMF (WEO April 2013)  140  140  Forecast IMF (WEO July 2013)  130  130  120  120  110  110  100  100  90  90 05  07  09  11  13  15  Sources: CPB Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis  Manufacturing industry catching up It is probable that we will be able to continue to describe the Swedish economy as divided for a while longer, even though confidence indicators suggest that the situation in the manufacturing industry is returning to normal. However, given the prospects for higher global demand we should also expect Swedish exports to increase in the years ahead. In combination with a more expansionary fiscal policy in Sweden and a low repo rate, GDP growth can thus be expected to pick up and the current low rate of CPIF inflation can be expected to gradually increase. Some new statistics have been published since the monetary policy meeting in September that shed light on the current situation in the Swedish economy. CPIF inflation was 1.2 per cent in August, which was somewhat higher than expected. A revised version of the National Accounts has also been published which shows that GDP fell slightly more in the second quarter than indicated by the figures published earlier. The growth figures have also been revised down somewhat for 2011 and up somewhat for 2012.

In addition, new labour market statistics show that seasonally-adjusted unemployment amounted to 8 per cent in August. The next Monetary Policy Report will not be published for a while yet, but at the Riksbank we are already working with new analyses and forecasts. Ahead of the monetary policy meeting on 23 October I will weigh these factors against each other, but also take account of any additional information that becomes available before then in order to arrive at a new assessment. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 8 Low but gradually increasing inflation CPI and CPIF, annual percentage change 5  5 CPIF  4  4  CPI  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2  -2 07  09  11  13  15  Note. The CPIF is the CPI with a fixed mortgage rate Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Good development in the short term, sustainable in the long term I hope that in my speech today I have been able to convey my thinking on monetary policy at the two latest monetary policy meetings and how I view the current situation. The repo rate is low at present. The Riksbank’s forecasts show that inflation will reach 2 per cent within the forecast period at the same time as resource utilisation will improve. Although the global economy is weak at the moment, the preconditions for a recovery are in place.
In addition, in cases pursuant to Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2018/389 regarding corporate payment processes and protocols, a payment service provider will have to submit to the BNB an audit report performed by auditors with expertise in IT security and payments. The audit report should certify that those processes or payment protocols guarantee at least equivalent levels of security to those provided for strong customer authentication as per Article 100 of the Law on Payments Services and Payment Systems. The provider must notify the BNB of any change in the application of exemptions from strong customer authentication. In addition to these requirements, payment service providers applying the exemptions should perform the monitoring, as stated in Article 21 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389, and make the results available to BNB upon request. Charges on Cross-border Payments in Euro and Currency Conversion Charges Regulation (EU) 2019/5183 introduces the requirement for payment service providers in non-euro area Member States to levy equal charges for cross-border payments in euro and for corresponding national payments of the same value in the national currency of the respective Member State. Such a legal requirement has existed so far only in respect to equal charges for national and cross-border payments in euro. The requirement for equal charges will become mandatory for payment service providers as of 15 December, 2019.

Weighing all these factors, on July 14th we announced an FX intervention program, completely sterilized, very similar to the one conducted in 2019 consisting in spot and forward sales and a preventive liquidity program through FX swaps. These interventions are exceptional tools to provide a backstop on destabilizing dynamics on financial markets. As a result of the intervention, we saw a moderation in all metrics of volatility and reduced frictions in the process of price formation. It is important to appreciate that coincidentally with the FX intervention announcement, the winds in the global markets became more constructive. Given this more favourable outlook, the program ended in September as planned. Regarding inflation, as stated before, its high level is the main challenge the Central Bank is facing. Beyond its high level, since June’s 2022 Monetary Policy Report there was an assessment that inflationary persistence was on the rise, amid constant and significant upside surprises in inflation and rising expectations in different timeframes. For these reasons the central bank could not stay still. Beginning early in July 2021 the Board decided to raise rates from the ELB at 0.5% to 11,25% in October of this year. This has been done swiftly and decidedly helping to resolve the macroeconomic imbalances that the economy accumulated. In fact, spending is slowing, the exchange rate has appreciated in recent weeks and after a very long period of higher-than-expected inflation private agents start adapting to the environment by adjusting expectations downwards.
Bank owners are already protected through the financial safety net and isolated against risks in a completely different way to those who own ordinary companies. It would therefore be unfortunate if the result was merely a proposal that entailed the state taking over the management of a problem institution, fixing it up and then handing it back to the owners in a new, improved version. My hope is that the government will dare to take the overall approach required when working on these issues. I hope in particular that they will take note of the events in the United Kingdom and the initiatives that have come about as a result of the problems with Northern Rock. It is important that the state has the necessary tools. If the current EU legislation in various ways puts a spoke in the wheel, then the joint regulations also need to be reviewed. The internationalisation of the financial sector requires greater cross-border cooperation The authorities’ crisis preparedness and legal and institutional arrangements for crisis management will thus be less of a purely national affair. The financial sector will be increasingly internationalised, if not globalised. The banks’ activities are becoming more cross-border in nature. The four largest Swedish banks currently have more than half of their total assets abroad, mainly in the other Nordic countries, but also in Germany, Poland and the Baltic states. An almost equally large share of their total operating profits originates abroad. For the Nordea group this share is no less than three quarters.

•  If central bank reserves are included in the leverage exposure measure, banks must think carefully before accepting a deposit. If it implies an increase in their overall asset size, their leverage capital requirement will increase commensurately, and that will bring a shadow regulatory cost of the same order of magnitude as those calculated in the paper. This disincentivises competition for deposits, and drives a wedge between the central bank policy rate and rates that banks will pay on wholesale deposits. •  If central bank reserves are removed from the exposure measure it instantly gives banks somewhere to place cash without impacting their leverage ratio. They would therefore maximise profits by competing for deposits at rates all the way up to the rate that can be earned on reserves at the central bank, thus improving passthrough to average bank deposit rates and strengthening the transmission of  2  For example, IMF (2009) and Aikman et al (2014), and others. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  monetary policy to the real economy. And the early indication from market participants is that they do indeed expect this change to strengthen the link between money market rates and Bank Rate. In short, although regulatory innovations such as the leverage ratio are here to stay, we can and should attenuate some of their impact on money market function where it is possible to do so without reducing the financial stability benefits.
This is how the Riksbank formulated the inflation target when it was announced in 1993. One can say that the task of ensuring that prices remain stable has been delegated by the Swedish people through the Riksdag (Swedish parliament) to the Riksbank. And this is actually not merely an objective, it is also a means. By keeping inflation low and stable, monetary policy is to help to create the best possible conditions for good and sustainable economic growth. Delegating monetary policy to the central bank in the way the Riksdag has done in Sweden also reduces the risk of political pressures, short-sighted actions and rapid changes in monetary policy. Our focus – what governs our interest rate decisions – is on attaining the inflation target within a couple of years in a way that provides the most balanced development of the economy possible. This was also the case at our most recent monetary policy meeting in September, when the repo rate was raised to 4.75 per cent. It was a difficult situation in which to make a decision, with high inflation both in Sweden and abroad at the outset and a very uncertain world economy. Although we Executive Board members agreed on many things, our assessments differed with regard to the interest rate path needed to bring inflation back on target at a suitable pace. Although the differences in our assessments were actually fairly modest, it is extremely important to be clear about both the common and individual motives behind the stances taken at the meeting.

The renewed volatility we saw in January is proof enough of that. Yet, I think we can remain generally optimistic on the outlook so long as market participants continue to appropriately discriminate across countries, rather than treating EMEs as a homogenous group. Furthermore, many EMEs generally appear better equipped today to handle the Fed’s prospective exit from its exceptional policy accommodation than they were in past tightening cycles. This reflects the fundamental reforms these EMEs have put in place over the past 15 years, as well as the hard lessons learned from past periods of market stress. Among the positives are: •  The absence of the type of fixed exchange rate peg regimes that often were undermined violently in the past during periods of stress;  •  Improved debt service ratios and generally moderate external debt levels;  •  Larger foreign exchange reserve liquidity cushions;  •  Clearer and more coherent monetary policy frameworks, supporting what are now generally low to moderate inflation rates;  •  Generally improved fiscal discipline; and  •  Better capitalized banking systems, supported by strengthened regulatory and supervisory frameworks. Of course progress has not been uniform across EMEs and more work remains to strengthen institutional structures further in some countries. In particular, vulnerabilities have built up recently in several important EMEs. Still, the fundamental improvements I’ve cited leave many EMEs better positioned than in the past to weather those times in the cycle when the external environment turns from welcoming to wary.