samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
However, procyclicality can be most mitigated by improving risk management: the most procyclical banks are those incapable of properly managing their risks over the course of the cycle, so that when the cycle turns adverse, they have to react abruptly. The debate on the procyclicality of international accounting standards has, to date, been more limited. This is surprising since, as current events are showing, the impact of fair value valuation on banks' income statements, and therefore on their retained earnings and on their capital, is notable, especially when markets are illiquid and internal valuation models are suffering the consequences. I believe that a reform now would only increase investor uncertainty. Therefore, once this period of turbulence is behind us, the debate on the procyclicality of accounting standards should be deepened, to consider what the weaknesses of using fair value in specific circumstances are. Further, it would be advisable to focus the discussion on the role of provisions, i.e. on measuring the losses incurred by banks due to credit risk. Greater flexibility in their calculation would enable procyclicality to be reduced, making the accounting standards more consistent with prudent risk management. This has been the traditional position of the Banco de España on accounting regulation, to consider it always as a key element of prudential regulation. In this respect, accounting Circular 4/2004, on the adaptation to international accounting standards, made a notable effort to retain prudential criteria in those areas in which the standards permitted more than one option.

One variant of these arbitrage strategies exploits pricing differences between common securities quoted on competing trading platforms. For that reason, HFT firms tend to have their tentacles spread across multiple trading venues, arbitraging tiny differences in price (Chart 7). These strategies have grown up as a direct response to the fragmentation of trading infrastructures. In other words, HFT is at least in part the (possibly unplanned) progeny of regulators pursuing competitive ends. The ascent of HFT goes a long way towards explaining the rise in equity market turnover in the major equity markets and in particular the rise in number, and fall in the average size, of trades executed. Put differently, the trading behaviour of HFT has contributed to the downward fall in the average duration of stock holdings. HFT holding periods lie in a narrow time range. The upper bound is perhaps around one day. The lower bound is a perpetual downward motion machine, as computing capacity compresses the timeline for trading. A decade ago, execution times on some electronic trading platforms dipped decisively below the one second barrier. As recently as a few years ago, trade execution times reached “blink speed” – as fast as the blink of an eye. At the time that seemed eye-watering, at around 300–400 milli-seconds or less than a third of a second. But more recently the speed limit has shifted from milli-seconds to micro-seconds – millionths of a second. Several trading platforms now offer trade execution measured in micro-seconds (Table 1).
In the short and medium term, economies subject to protectionist measures suffer reductions in exports and investment, with resulting adverse effects on their activity. Also, the effects on economies that adopt protectionist measures are far from positive, owing to the increase in the price of their imports, which, in turn, leads to an increase in production costs for their businesses and lower purchasing power for households, which leads to adverse effects on private consumption and investment. In addition, the uncertainty associated with trade tensions and the possible tightening of financial conditions may discourage investment further and worsen the negative impact on activity and potential growth. The estimates of the main international organisations in relation to the recent trade tensions between the United States and China suggest that the measures currently in force will have a relatively moderate impact (less than 0.5 pp of GDP in China and the United States, with an even smaller effect on global GDP). However, the application of tariffs and additional non-tariff measures, such as those announced by these two major powers, along with the foreseeable deterioration in confidence and in the financial markets to which this scenario could give rise, would involve much higher costs. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it could, over three years, subtract nearly one percentage point from world GDP, with a more pronounced impact on China (-1.5 pp) and on the United States (-1 pp) than on other areas, such as the euro area, where the losses would be somewhat less than 0.5 pp.

It encourages introduction of new types of payment services and sophistication of customer 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  protection and security. Also, much attention is paid on evaluation of SEPA-regulation and further integration via implementation of Pan-European instant payments solution. The innovations in the field of financial market infrastructures are expected to bring synergies between TARGET2 and T2S, which is in the scope of the Eurosystem’s Vision 2020. At the national level, we made significant progress towards fulfilling the European standards in the payment area. A new Law on payment services and systems implementing PSD and some articles of PSD2, E-money 2 and Settlement Finality Directive was drafted with the EU support via IPA project. In the field of payment systems oversight, the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures were adopted. Furthermore, we aligned our methodology for collecting payment statistics data with the EU regulation on payment statistics. Last but not least is the recent project to enhance euro cross-border payment infrastructure by establishing an alternative payment channel via the Macedonian Interbank Payment System (MIPS) RTGS system, which was connected with the TARGET2, via Banca d’Italia. I am very glad that all these issues will be discussed by eminent experts from the Bank for International Settlements, European Commission, De Nederlandsche Bank, Banco de Portugal, Commerzbank, Euroclear, ProgressSoft as well as domestic financial institutions.
At this point, I would like to pinpoint several examples that clearly demonstrate the value added of data granularity from policy perspective. How can we explain the phenomenon of slow credit growth despite the massive monetary policy accommodation? Obviously we need to dive into individual/ more granular data to understand the causes of the impaired transmission – is it demand or supply side? In our case, scrutinizing the individual balance sheet pointed to different obstacles for different  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  banks – although in some cases it was the liquidity issue, mostly it was capital constraints in the context of deleveraging, new Basel regulation, as well as relatively high level of NPLs. It raised the question of the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission and factors which hinder it. In this respect, the aggregate data was not informative enough, but micro bank-bybank data were needed to detect constraints in a more proper manner. The scrutinization of the balance sheets of individual banks revealed that the main obstacles varied for different banks. For some of them the limited capital was the main constraining factor for expansion of their activities. Given that at that point in time the space for increasing the capital through profit retention or injection of additional capital was limited, the banks were not in a position to expand more, without jeopardizing their capital adequacy ratios. In other banks, the quality of the current credit portfolio and the large amount of NPLs were obstacle for providing more credit to the economy.

Rest assured that the ECB Governing Council is fully committed to rein in inflation, and to ensure that it returns towards 2% by end 2024 or end 2025. II. Paris' momentum as financial centre Amidst this geopolitical and economic uncertainty, and despite the recent turmoil in the United States and in Switzerland, financial stability has been preserved in Europe. EU banks are robust, with substantial capital and liquidity buffers: they are in their overwhelming majority subject to stringent Basel requirements – which makes a big difference with the many mid-sized US banks. We have in the euro area no "Sorgenkind" or "problem child", such as Crédit Suisse; and since 2014 we have had a single and strong supervisor thanks to Banking Union. As President of the French prudential authority (the ACPR), I can in particular attest to how solid and diversified French banks are nowadays. Four of them are categorised as global systemically important banks (G-SIBS), and they act as catalysts for Paris as a financial centre. Indeed, Paris stands out as unique in the network of European financial centres: it is the only one to offer such a wide range of financial activities, from global asset management to insurance and banking, and it has further reinforced its position since Brexit.
Under one important prerequisite: the private sector should play its part in the effort, and we should unlock cross border capital flows for the transition; this is the strongest argument in favour of a Green Capital Markets Union, which I advocated with my German colleague Joachim Nagel x). Except in 2022 and the exceptional energy shock, the euro area had a structural excess of savings to investment of 2% of GDP. Hence, provided we have the right economic incentives, Europe can finance its ambitious climate transition; this final and fundamental conviction is a good piece of news. * **  Good news is also important in what could seem like an ocean of alarming information on climate change. Our natural tendency to shut our ears when faced with pessimistic announcements was best captured by Homer with Cassandra. She repeatedly tried to warn that Troy would fall should they let Ulysses’ Trojan horse get into the city. I don’t claim to be Homer or even Cassandra. I tried this morning to sum up in a fair way what we know and don’t know yet about the macroeconomics of climate change, but above all what we can and must do as soon as possible – we are already in “money time”. I thank you for your attention.

Carlos da Silva Costa: Reviving markets in high quality securitisation in Europe Address by Mr Carlos da Silva Costa, Governor of Banco de Portugal, at the European Investment Bank/International Monetary Fund Meeting, Brussels, 23 October 2014. *  *  *  Let me start by congratulating the EIB and the IMF for this initiative. It is very important to assure that the topics chosen for this workshop (SME Securitization and Distressed assets) be at the forefront of policy makers’ and regulators’ concerns. A more healthy European financial system requires progress in these areas. Six years since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, output levels in the EU are below those observed before the crisis. The same is true for employment and investment. Some countries have fared much worse than this average while adjusting their balance sheets and external accounts; that has been accompanied by deleveraging in all sectors, along with changes in relative prices vis-à-vis the rest of Europe in a low inflation environment. All this is taking place at the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate, where active monetary policy can only be unconventional. The role of financial markets is crucial in this story. But the distinction of the direction of causality is difficult: is the economy weak because of financial markets or are financial markets weak because of the economy? The question is often put as: is the problem supply or demand for, say, credit?
The clearing spread for the narrow set would remain 10bps (bidder 6, as the cheapest narrow bidder, would be allotted only £ against his bid for £ The clearing spread for wider collateral would be 19bps £ would be allocated to bidder 1). That results in a stop-out spread (the difference between the clearing spreads for wider and narrow collateral) of 9bps. The stop out spread remains at 9bps until the point at which £ is allocated to the wider set. At that point, bidder 6 is no longer filled, and the clearing spread on the narrow set rises to 12bps. Bidder 1 receives £ out of the £ he has bid, and so the clearing spread remains at 19bps on wider. But the stop out spread is then 7bps (Chart 5). At the point where £ is allocated to wider, the clearing spread on narrow is still 12bps (bidder 6 is unfilled, and bidder 5 gets £ against a bid of £ but the clearing spread on wider falls to  16  8  Strictly, the stop-out spread is not defined if the allocation is 100% to one type of collateral. BIS central bankers’ speeches  17bps (bidder 1 is fully allocated and bidder 2 gets £ The stop out spread falls to 5bps (Chart 5). Continuing this process, and tracing out the spectrum of stop out spreads and the associated proportions of the funds allocated to wider collateral, results in the auction demand curve.

In contrast, the Federal Reserve’s experience conducting sales of agency MBS is limited to a few small value exercises.30 Central banks that are currently buying non-sovereign assets in LSAPs have a similar lack of experience with sales. There may be separate lessons to be learned from selling agency MBS.31 Current FOMC guidance states that the sale of agency MBS is not anticipated, other than potentially to eliminate residual holdings well in the future, and that in the longer run, SOMA will consist primarily of Treasury securities. 32 From a practical standpoint, sales may be complicated in that they would likely be conducted through the sale of individual securities, not through the use of the TBA market, because the securities in the SOMA portfolio might be more valuable than TBA cheapest-to-deliver. 33 This complication could eliminate the liquidity advantage provided by transacting in TBA.34 However, it is prudent for the Desk to be prepared for a wide variety of scenarios, including sales or the need to purchase additional agency MBS. This flexibility is particularly important given the complex nature of agency MBS and the specialized knowledge and systems required to hold and transact in the agency MBS market. From an implementation perspective, the Federal Reserve is fortunate to have the option of implementing monetary policy in a large and liquid non-sovereign market with direct implications for existing and prospective homeowners. We have spent the past two days discussing monetary policy implementation in the long run.
First, we need to recognise that we are talking of slowdown in the US from what have been extremely buoyant rates of growth, maintained for several years past, as the US economy has reaped the benefits of the application of information technology and the rise in productivity growth that had engendered - the new economy. There is plenty of evidence that growth in the US needed to slow somewhat, to alleviate imbalances in the economy. So part of what is happening should be helpful in providing a sounder base for sustainable recovery. 2  BIS Review 22/2001  Secondly, the new economy is, in the US, a reality: there plainly has been a continuing process of improvements in efficiency, achieved by harnessing the benefits of IT, which have raised the growth capacity of the economy. It seems unlikely that those gains will vanish into the night and, if they remain in place, they should provide a basis for a recovery in US growth when the present adjustment has run its course. That, of course, says nothing about how long the adjustment may take. But a third important feature is that the Federal Reserve has demonstrated a willingness to act rapidly and vigorously in easing monetary conditions in response to the downturn. Monetary policy cannot remove economic cycles. But active and intelligent management of interest rates can help substantially to alleviate the severity of the adjustment. And a fourth factor suggests that the markets share this view.

That would, of course, be grounds for us to contemplate further easing in our monetary stance. That follows because our inflation target is, importantly, a symmetrical one: we need to be just as ready to contemplate easing if we see evidence on the downside of the economy underperforming, and hence the likelihood of inflation running over time materially below our 2 1/2% target, as we would be to exercise restraint on the upside. We take this symmetrical nature of our responsibility very seriously and there is undoubtedly a significant risk that the US slowdown could have a material dampening effect on UK activity. Analysts have used a large part of the alphabet to try to describe various views of how the US economy may develop. I am not sure that I find any of these pictograms particularly helpful, not least because people are sometimes pretty vague about vital details like the dimensions of the letter they favour or the angle of its arms: a big V, after all, can feel awfully like a U when you are down the bottom and trying to find your way up again. The short answer is that none of us can pretend to know precisely how the story will develop. It will be important to keep an open mind and be prepared to adapt our assessment in the light of actual events. But in doing so, there are four considerations that I would suggest are particularly germane to this first area of uncertainty.
Ranee Jayamaha: Role of external auditor and implications of the new Companies Act Speech by Dr Ranee Jayamaha, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at a seminar at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Colombo, 11 June 2007. *  *  *  Given the rapidly expanding financial landscape in Sri Lanka in which finance and leasing companies are making a significant contribution to the financial services industry, it is imperative that the role of each stakeholder is recognized for purposes of clarity, financial reporting and in the interest of wider financial system stability. The business of finance, hire purchase and leasing has grown significantly in the last few years, but at a lower pace than that of the banking sector. In 2006 alone, the growth in leasing portfolio of banks was 80%, while the finance companies and leasing companies recorded growth rates of 13% and 6%, respectively, in their lease portfolios. Banks and finance companies have access to low cost funds through deposit mobilization. Here too, banks have current accounts at zero costs. Leasing companies, on the other hand, rely on bank borrowing or borrowing through debt instruments which is costly to them. Recently, the Central Bank has recommended amendments to the Leasing Companies Act to regularize leasing company borrowings from the public through the issue of debt instruments.

The regulator as well as the external auditor starts their examinations and audits with the financial reporting aspects of companies. The external auditor is basically looking at the financial performance of the company and its compliance with the laws, observance of auditing and accounting standards and rules and regulations set out by the regulator. They also look into aspects such as health of the balance sheet, status of the profit & loss account and the ability of the company to operate as a going concern. The regulator, on the other hand, has to make sure that not only companies adhere to provisions in the governing laws and comply with rules and regulations but also ensure that finance and leasing companies have put in place necessary processes and procedures to mitigate risks, be it credit, liquidity, market or systemic. The regulator makes recommendations to initiate action, if such risk mitigation methods are not considered adequate. The regulator is conscious of not only the viability of the company to operate as a going concern, but also its ability to pay its liabilities to creditors and depositors. Sometimes, there is an over-lapping of the two roles of the regulator and external auditor, but with closer dialogue, coordination and cooperation, the duplication of work can be avoided. The regulator should have quarterly/monthly dialogue with the companies and external auditors which is a healthy practice than working on an isolated basis.
And other  companies exposed to these directly affected companies reduced their own employment, grew more slowly and achieved lower productivity. There is evidence this had a sizable impact in aggregate. Studies show that the excessive tightening of corporate financing conditions during the GFC accounted for 33-50% of the increase in SME unemployment in the United States, while contributing to 12.5-30%  of the  reduction in productivity among Italian corporates. Macroprudential reforms introduced following the crisis have sought to alleviate the risk of banks having to sharply curtail the supply of finance to protect their own balance sheets. Strengthened bank capital standards, including the introduction of buffers, and the active use of the Countercyclical Capital Buffer in particular, have reduced the risk that banks feel compelled to cut lending rapidly in a downturn. And alongside fiscal interventions, these efforts contributed to banks continuing support of UK corporates during the pandemic. More recently the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the United States reminds us that we need to remain vigilant of the potential for banking stress to impact corporates. When problems in the US led to the failure of SVB’s UK subsidiary, the Bank of England stepped it to use its resolution powers and transfer SVB UK’s business to HSBC, ensuring continuity of service and lending.

The strategy has been to institute the entire financial system chain to ensure its smooth functioning thereby contributing to a balanced allocation of financial and economic resources within the economy, and a greater diversification of risks within the system, and thus achieving overall stability of the Islamic financial system. The initiatives taken include building the required financial institutions, robust regulatory and supervisory framework, effective legal and Shariah framework, the financial markets, effective payment and settlement system, reinforced by the development of the skill talents, and putting in place the mechanism for the operation of the Central Bank. The development of this chain has promoted greater linkages and integration within the domestic Islamic financial system. Attention has therefore been given to the development of the key structural components of the system, comprising the Islamic banking industry, the takaful industry, the non-banking institutions and the Islamic interbank and capital markets. These respective components of the Islamic financial system have now become highly integrated and interdependent. This more diversified financial infrastructure has also enhanced the efficiency in the functioning of the overall financial system. The development of the Islamic financial system in Malaysia started with the establishment of Tabung Haji in 1969 as the first Islamic savings institution. This was followed by the establishment of full-fledged Islamic banking and non-banking institutions. A year after the establishment of the first Islamic Bank in 1983, a takaful or Islamic insurance company was established under the Takaful Act.