samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Yet these uncertainties can be turned into opportunities and I would like to emphasise that. It is worth noting that EU Member States remained impressively united behind their negotiator, Michel Barnier, during the Brexit talks. This unity must now be directed towards achieving an ambition: completing and strengthening the economic and monetary union. This period of uncertainties actually reminds us that bilateral and multilateral cooperation are quite valuable, as they are a common wealth enhancer, especially when the issue at stake is financial regulation and financial stability. At the end of 2017, central bankers and supervisors reached a very important agreement on the Basel III post-crisis regulatory reforms. This agreement must now be implemented in various jurisdictions to further increase the soundness of the banking system. Since the great financial crisis, other issues have emerged. Cyber-risks have risen significantly over the last few years and the financial sector remains a primary target. The surge of crypto-assets is another challenge for regulators given the risks they pose for consumer protection and anti-money laundering. To address these risks adequately, the digital and global nature of crypto-assets calls for an international approach. ***  Cooperation is all the more necessary as the major financial centres, including Paris and Hong Kong, are highly interconnected. I believe that Paris today has all the attributes necessary to become the pre-eminent financial trading and financing hub for continental Europe.

Denis Beau: Financial markets - driving innovation and connectivity Opening remarks by Mr Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, at the Paris Financial Seminar, co-organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Paris Europlace, Hong Kong, 16 January 2019. * * * Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to open this seminar jointly organised by Paris Europlace and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). A new year is usually the time when we regain confidence in the future and in our collective ability to prepare for it. ***  However there are many uncertainties weighing on the global economic outlook. In Europe, there are still many uncertainties about the outcome of Brexit negotiations and the vote over the withdrawal agreement. Caution requires that we all be prepared for a no-deal scenario. Public authorities and most importantly market participants have all prepared serious contingency plans to address and master the cliff-edge risks associated with such a no-deal scenario. As a result, we can expect that those risks will be appropriately managed, without financial stability implications, should such a scenario occur. Outside Europe, global trade tensions are also generating additional uncertainties. Protectionism can indeed be a temptation, but in my view it should not be an option. Let’s be clear: our economies are increasingly integrated, and research conducted at the Banque de France suggests that a rise in protectionism on a large scale (i.e. a generalised trade war scenario) would have a negative impact on global growth.
Another topic which is concerning the ECB and national lawmakers is virtual currencies. Luxembourg and other countries in the EU are granting more and more importance to virtual currencies, but you seem to be really cautious. What do you see as the biggest potential threats emanating from cryptocurrencies? One should consider various aspects. One is financial stability, the second is consumer protection, the third is investor protection, the fourth is market integrity and the fifth is anti-money laundering. Concerns regarding these aspects are especially high in relation to what you call cryptocurrencies. I call them virtual tokens, by the way. They are like the tokens you buy when you go to a casino. Studies have shown that 50% of transactions made using these virtual tokens and 25% of users are linked to illicit activities. There are four main risks. The first risk is market liquidity. The market is excessively concentrated, with about 96% of transactions being carried out by 2% of account holders. Second is liquidity risk. These currencies still always need transferring to the real economy because your bakery will not accept them. There were conferences on bitcoins where they said you could pay with bitcoin. But when you tried to pay the entrance fee with bitcoin, it took so long that the conference was over by the time the payment was received. It is not an efficient system. The third risk is that people use cryptocurrencies to create leverage because they don’t get leverage any more in the real economy.

For example, consumers could use their credit cards to make such investments and increase their indebtedness. The higher the leverage, the greater the risk as well. The fourth risk is the operational and technical immaturity of the technology. We are open to the technology of distributed ledgers. But that is something different from bitcoin. Bitcoin itself belongs to no one; no one is backing it, no one is issuing it. The mining is happening to a large extent in remote places and involves very high energy consumption. Bitcoin’s estimated annual energy consumption has now reached more than 52 terawatt hours per year, which is more than the total energy consumption of Portugal. We see that, for example, when approval is sought, it sometimes takes several hours to get one block validated. The ECB, by contrast, is about to offer instant payments in all European countries. An instant payment costs 0.2 cent and the recipient has it within 10 seconds. This is efficient and pan-European, and it is also operated by trusted authorities as well as regulated and supervised entities. Then you have contagion channels for the risks of virtual currencies. If households are heavily involved in bitcoin and the whole thing collapses, it could create a wealth effect on the economy, depending of course on the scale of the market. With official currencies, you have central banks, like the ECB, you have governments who put political capital into maintaining a currency and supporting it.
Sarah Breeden: Macropru – fit for the future? Speech by Ms Sarah Breeden, Executive Director for Financial Stability Strategy and Risk of the Bank of England, at Lancaster University, Lancaster, 28 April 2022. * * * When the financial system is in poor condition – when there is financial instability – it can be damaging to us all. I like to compare the importance of financial stability to our collective prosperity with the importance of health to an individual. Good health may not be the only thing that matters for an individual’s happiness. But it is essential. Because poor health comes with undesirable consequences. We need only remind ourselves of the global financial crisis, more than a decade ago, to appreciate the undesirable consequences of financial instability. UK GDP shrank by more than 6% during the first five quarters of the crisis, staying below its prerecession size for a further five years. Unemployment increased, with an additional 1 million jobs lost by its peak at the end of 2011. And labour productivity, the best way to measure living standards in the long-run, fell sharply in 2008 and has barely recovered since.1 The poor health of the global financial system was exposed in the most dramatic of fashions. We might liken it to a heart attack. And in response the authorities co-operated across borders and across institutions to design a radical ‘healthcare plan’ – to improve resilience, both at the microprudential individual institution and the economy-wide macro-prudential levels.

In addition, the new technology has the potential to reshape activity currently taking place in the traditional financial sector, either through the migration of that activity or the widespread adoption of the technology. Crypto technology has the potential to bring significant benefits, for example by reducing the cost and increasing the speed of cross-border transactions, and encouraging competition in the financial system. But those benefits can only be realised and innovation be sustainable if it is undertaken safely and accompanied by effective public policy frameworks that mitigate risks and maintain broader trust and integrity in the financial system. In this way, the growth of cryptoassets and DeFi has highlighted another of the key challenges for policymakers: the need for regulatory frameworks to adapt. 3.The transition to net zero: structural change requires coordinated action from all sectors And finally, we face the continued need to support the orderly transition to a net zero economy. Climate change creates risks to financial stability through two channels: physical risks and transition risks. And the financial system will play a key role in financing the significant structural economic changes needed to deliver the transition to a net zero economy. The unique challenge here is that the orderly transition to net zero will require coordinated action across private and public sector institutions, and across all sectors of finance and the real economy. The Bank’s role is focussed on tackling the consequences (not the causes) of climate change.
I could never have imagined, pre-crisis, that Europe’s Presidents and Prime Ministers could ever argue about such arcane issues. But arcane or otherwise, they were crucial to the survival of a number of systemic banks. The second thing this episode shows us is that, when push came to shove, how little confidence investors had in the regulatory capital framework. In essence, markets discounted all types of capital except pure equity. And as they distrusted the risk-weighted numbers, they wrote down the value of the equity to reach the numbers I mentioned earlier. And, in many cases, they were right to do so. Capital adequacy turned out to be an illusion. I want to talk today about the action taken and the steps we still need to take to avoid a similar illusion in the future. How should we measure and set bank capital requirements? And in particular, the role the leverage ratio can play. And I also want to talk a little about the non-bank financial sector. Because as we strengthen the capital and liquidity rules for banks, there is a danger that the risks migrate from banks into the non-bank sector. And here I want to touch upon another pre-crisis illusion – the liquidity illusion. Reforming the capital framework The market in 2008 and 2009 clearly did not believe either the numbers for bank capital or for bank assets. Capital was not just pure equity.

As we stimulate our economies to bounce back from the Covid-19 crisis, there is a good opportunity for Shanghai and Singapore to collaborate on promoting green finance in the region. There is strong demand in Asia for green investment. According to a study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and DBS Bank, $ billion in green investment is required 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  annually until 2030, to support the greening of Asian economies. We already see Chinese and Singapore banks partnering to finance green and sustainable projects. In April last year, ICBC Singapore worked with DBS and other global banks to jointly issue its first Belt and Road green bond, sized at $ billion, and more recently issued its first green loan in Singapore, through a partnership with DBS and OCBC. In September last year, the Singapore branch of the Agricultural Bank of China collaborated with UOB and BNP Paribas to originate a $ million green loan in Singapore. There is scope for our financial centres to deepen our partnership in green finance. One, we could create together frameworks for green and sustainability-linked loans customised for Chinese and Singaporean small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Such frameworks can help promote cross-border syndications in green loans. They can also help to reduce the borrowing costs of SMEs, which will not need to incur expenses for external reviews certifying their activities are green.
Central clearing: reaping the benefits, controlling the risks. Banque de France Financial Stability Review No. 21, April 2017 - The impact of financial reforms 97. Cole, S., Kanz, M., & Klapper, L. (2015). Incentivizing calculated risk‐taking: evidence from an experiment with commercial bank loan officers. The Journal of Finance, 70(2), 537-575. Cont, R., & Schaanning, E. (2017). Fire sales, indirect contagion and systemic stress testing. Norges Bank Working Paper. Cornett, M. M., McNutt, J. J., Strahan, P. E., & Tehranian, H. (2011). Liquidity risk management and credit supply in the financial crisis. Journal of Financial Economics, 101(2), 297-312. Crockett, A. (1996). The theory and practice of financial stability. De Economist, 144(4), 531-568. Crowe, C., Dell’Ariccia, G., Igan, D., & Rabanal, P. (2013). How to deal with real estate booms: Lessons from country experiences. Journal of Financial Stability, 9(3), 300-319. Cunliffe, J. (2017). Ten years on: Lessons from Northern Rock. Speech at the Single Resolution Board Annual Conference, Brussels. Dagher, J., Dell’Ariccia, G., Laeven, L., Ratnovski, L., & Tong, H. (2016). Benefits and Costs of Bank Capital. Staff discussion Note 16/04, International Monetary Fund: Washington, DC. Dal Bó, E. (2006). Regulatory capture: a review. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22(2), 203-225. Demekas, M. D. G. (2015). Designing effective macroprudential stress tests: progress so far and the way forward (No. 15-146). International Monetary Fund. DeMiguel, V., Garlappi, L., & Uppal, R. (2007). Optimal versus naive diversification: How inefficient is the 1/N portfolio strategy? The Review of Financial Studies, 22(5), 1915-1953. Demirguc-Kunt, A., Detragiache E. & Merrouche O. (2010).

Improving the state of the labor market, removing rigid labor market regulations, reducing the tax wedge, and more importantly enhancing the human capital through education reforms are essential to accelerate the growth rate of the economy on a sustainable basis. Second, Turkey is a net commodity importer in contrast to Latin American countries and South Africa. We need to import in excess of 35 billion USD worth of oil and natural gas each year, almost 5% of our GDP. Looking at the composition of the foreign trade, you can see that our imports are mainly commodities and intermediate goods, whereas industrial goods cover more than 90% of our total exports. Therefore, promoting Turkey's competitiveness is the key to her future success. 2  BIS Review 32/2008  Third, high domestic savings rate, which is high in emerging countries in Asia, is quite low in Turkey. It is around 20%. We need to attract foreign savings to finance investments. It is not surprising to observe a strong and direct positive relationship in Turkey between growth rate and current account deficit. Of course, the upward trend in energy prices has also contributed to the widening of the current account deficit to 5.8% in 2007. The current account deficit is a structural problem and a source of vulnerability. However, Turkey did not have difficulty in its financing in the last 6 years. In fact, the quality of foreign capital flows has improved sharply.
Importantly, the merger will further strengthen the alignment of strategies and priorities for the development of Malaysia’s payment systems. It is also expected to significantly reduce the time to market for delivering improvements. As a shared utility, PayNet will operate with a public interest objective to support and develop safe, reliable and efficient payment systems in Malaysia. PayNet will provide the necessary common infrastructure, and the banks will compete on providing financial products and services. In the long run, we should expect that the merged entity should venture abroad and strike foreign alliances to further expand network and reach. Over the next 12 months, PayNet will move forward with plans to develop and implement a Realtime Retail Payments Platform (RPP) that will facilitate interoperable mobile payments. A central feature of the RPP is the national addressing database that will allow payments to be made conveniently through the use of mobile phone numbers and National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) numbers, instead of referencing bank account numbers. In line with principles of fair and open access, the RPP will be open to both banks and eligible non-bank payment service providers. Besides making the technology roadmap for the RPP publicly available, PayNet will actively engage with the banking industry, FinTech community and other relevant stakeholders in the development of the RPP. PayNet will also direct its focus to promoting MyDebit, which is the domestic debit card network, as a low-cost alternative to displace the use of cash.

In parallel, investors have become more reluctant to invest in the banking sector when profit expectations are low, making it difficult for banks to raise new funds. Banks’ soundness therefore tends to be more correlated to economic fluctuations than in the past, contributing to the amplification of the credit cycle. •  Accounting regulations so far may also contribute to amplifying credit cycles to some extent. In most financial centres, current provisioning behaviour does not allow banks to take a forward-looking view of their risks, as accounting and tax rules only accept loan-loss provisions for impaired loans. Such a regulatory environment may amplify the credit cycle, contributing to low provisioning and over-lending during upswings and paving the way to sharp corrections during downswings. Using full fair value accounting for loan portfolios might further amplify credit cycles by increasing the volatility of banks’ earnings. •  Prudential rules may also have been unable so far to always prevent these developments. Current capital adequacy rules are not risk-sensitive; as a result, credit  2  BIS Review 41/2001  deterioration does not require additional regulatory capital unless loan losses erode the capital base under minimum requirements. As most banks – particularly large ones – have capital far beyond the prudential minimum requirements, they can bear a reduction of their capital base without being compelled to restrict their credit granting. Therefore, capital ratio is not pro-cyclical as such.
Significant institutional reforms were implemented in areas such as governance, competition policy, labour markets, privatisation and enterprise restructuring. It is also true that, in order to comply with the accession preconditions, we had to take some measures a little bit faster than theory and other countries’ experience would have advised. I am referring, for instance, to the liberalisation of capital flows while still having a significant inflation differential and, therefore, a significant interest rate differential. We learnt before long how challenging it is for monetary policy to manage aggregate demand and expectations in a small open economy amid a flood of capital, particularly when having to cover also for an excessively loose fiscal policy. Some of the side-effects of liberalizing the capital flows are still haunting us today. I am referring here to the Swiss franc loans, which have lately become a thorny issue, even if the scale of the problem is by far the smallest among peer countries – less than 5 percent of the outstanding loans and just 2 percent of the total number of individual debtors at the time the problem erupted in early 2015. Its magnitude was from twofold to fivefold larger in Croatia, Poland or Hungary. I dare say the macro-prudential action taken by the National Bank of Romania is not unrelated to this outcome. Turning back to the EU entry in 2007, all things considered, I could say that we probably caught the last train, especially in the new post-crisis environment.

Mugur Isărescu: Building our place in Europe - young Romanians pushing the boundaries in technology Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the conference "Building our place in Europe - young Romanians pushing the boundaries in technology", Bucharest, 24 October 2016. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to have been invited to address some of the best and the brightest of Romania’s younger generation. I must say I am impressed that you have built such a strong community here in the UK, judging by the large number of people present and the fact that this reunion is at its ninth edition. I congratulate the Romanian Embassy in the UK, the British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce, the Raţiu Foundation and all the other entities involved in the organisation of this event. I am happy to see that Romanian authorities, academia and non-government organisations are working towards strengthening the connection with Romanians abroad. We, at the National Bank of Romania, are also very interested to make use of the expertise of Romanians who have studied or worked abroad. Let me be more specific: we have now around 75 employees who either got post-graduate degrees at Western universities or have working experience in top European institutions, such as the European Central Bank, the European Commission or the Eurostat. Moreover, our internship programme is open to undergraduates studying abroad and we are glad to see increasing interest from such applicants.