samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Differences in regulation, or their application, can undermine the regulatory framework by making it more difficult for bank depositors, counterparties, investors, shareholders and supervisors to have confidence that reported capital ratios serve their intended purpose. In this context, some concerns have been recently voiced that banks are not calculating risk weighted assets consistently. The Committee has, in fact, been investigating this issue for much of the past year. This work has examined the calculation of risk weights in both the banking and the trading books. As with our country assessments, we will publish the results of both studies. The preliminary results of the trading book are most advanced, and will be published very shortly. The analysis is based on two sources of data: public disclosures by banks and a hypothetical test portfolio exercise in which 15 large, internationally active banks have participated from nine Basel Committee jurisdictions. I will not pre-release the detailed results today, but the headline messages are that:  1  At least, fascinating for regulatory aficionados. 2  See C Goodhart, The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, A History of the Early Years 1974–1997, Cambridge University Press, 2011  3  The Level 2 reports on the European Union, Japan and the United States can be found at the website of the Basel Committee (www.bis.org/bcbs/index.htm).

Much of the Basel Committee’s work on big “ideas” that respond to the shortcomings in the regulatory framework identified by the financial crisis is reaching the end stage. The capital rules are set (and, in an increasing number of jurisdictions, coming into force), and the revisions to the LCR have recently been agreed. In 2013, we will seek to set out the specification of the backstop leverage ratio, and the NSFR will be refined between now and the end of 2014. Clearly, we still have work to do, but increasingly it is about getting the technical details correct rather than new far-reaching ideas. Even when the Committee’s policy response to the crisis is complete, much more work will still be needed. Implementation needs to be seen as an integral part of the reform agenda, not a sideline activity. As we examine this issue to a depth that it has not previously been examined, we will inevitably find things that need improvement. Turning a blind eye to these, as may have occurred in the past, is not an option – we need to persevere and find those areas where additional modifications to the regulatory framework are needed to ensure it is effective. If we do not work to improve implementation, we will not embed the reforms into domestic banking systems in the full, timely and consistent manner that is in everyone’s interests. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7
That’s welcome in a dynamic, innovative marketplace, where trying to codify prescriptive guidance would require constant iteration to prevent it from becoming out of date or having unintended consequences. Experience suggests that very detailed rules can encourage firms to focus on optimising outcomes against them, rather than taking a balanced view of risk and reward and the wider economic benefits that can flow from their investment choices. Our role as prudential supervisors is to ensure that the regulatory environment supports and incentivises proper consideration of all the risks that the business model brings. The supervisory measures are therefore an important part of the overall package, ensuring that firms scrutinise and take responsibility for their risks. Boards and senior managers are accountable for their business model and the risks presented by it. Through the attestation measure, for example, firms take ownership of and accountability for the level of matching adjustment benefit applied to the balance sheet and the capital so created, rather than delegating to a one-size-fits-all regulatory standard with known limitations. The implementation of the measures may represent a shift in thinking for the industry, and a shift in supervisory thinking too. Implemented well, they will be a pragmatic and proportionate way to deal with the risks firms face and will allow these issues to be better understood and acted on. Conclusion – Desired outcomes Perhaps you’re now thinking I mis-sold when I referred to a feast and I’ve offered what seems more like an abundance of greens.

And for dessert, I will examine how this is informing our approach to the implementation of the Solvency II reforms, which includes additional supervisory measures, and the importance we are placing on senior management responsibility. Market developments - Accelerated growth From historic lows of 0.1% in December 2021, the UK Bank rate rose to 4.25% in March 2023. While it could hardly be described as plain sailing for pension schemes or their sponsors, the rise in interest rates has generally reduced the value of their liabilities and boosted funding ratios (see chart 1). This has greatly improved the affordability of buy-outs for many pension schemes. At the same time, trustees of pension schemes are reported to be increasingly viewing buy-outs as a long-term target[4]. Increased affordability and a decreased appetite to retain this risk have led to a growing appetite for schemes to transact in one go, rather than perform staged buy-ins spread over several years[5]. So called ‘jumbo’ schemes may also present exciting opportunities for the insurers. This all points to a material increase in pension schemes’ demand for BPA in 2023. But I’d note that this is an acceleration of the existing demand for BPA in a large but finite market in run-off (see chart 2 and 3). This heightened demand from pension schemes might lead you to think that there is enough new business for all insurers to get their fill, leading to competitive pressures easing up.
Philipp Hildebrand: Current state of the financial system in Switzerland Introductory remarks by Mr Philipp Hildebrand, Vice-Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the half-yearly media news conference, Geneva, 19 June 2008. *  *  *  The Swiss National Bank publishes its sixth annual report on financial stability today. My comments are based on this report. I will begin with a brief assessment of the current state of the financial system. Then I will present the most important lessons which the Swiss National Bank has learned from the credit market turmoil. As you know, the situation in the Swiss banking sector worsened significantly in 2007 as a result of the correction in the US real estate market. In the second half of the year, profits fell at the Swiss big banks and there was a substantial deterioration in their capital base. The other Swiss banks, by contrast, were hardly affected by the turmoil. Most of them were able to benefit from the buoyant Swiss economy and surpass the good results they had achieved the previous year. Since the beginning of 2008, developments at the big banks have been mixed. On the one hand, in the first quarter of 2008, they suffered losses in the international credit markets due to further deterioration in the international credit markets. On the other hand, they strengthened their capital bases and partially reduced their risk positions. In the past few months, the overall market environment has calmed somewhat.

Andrew G Haldane: Turning the red tape tide Remarks by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at the International Financial Law Review Dinner, London, 10 April 2013. *  *  *  Regulatory and legal frameworks share common roots. Both are complex, evolutionary systems, shaped by history. They are the result of a set of well-intentioned historical actions by technicians charged with filling cracks, creating certainty, shaping incentives for the common good. Both legal and regulatory frameworks have many of the characteristics of a classic public good. But the cumulative consequences of even well-intentioned actions may not always deliver outcomes which necessarily serve society well. That is because such actions are typically a response to events and circumstance. The resulting frameworks have a history of pathdependence (David (1985)). This history-dependence may “lock-in” sub-optimal technologies, such as QWERTY keyboards and VHS video-recorders. The financial regulatory framework may be another example of a locked-in technology. The events which have shaped the evolution of financial regulation include crises, scandals, innovation and liberalisation. Each has elicited a response, typically the addition of a new regulatory layer. The cumulative consequence has been a regulatory tide which has tended to flow in only one direction – towards a lengthier, more complex rulebook. In this respect, financial regulation shares many evolutionary characteristics with elements of the legal framework – for example, the tax code. It too has been responsive to events and circumstance including crises, scandals, innovation and liberalisation.
Specifically, in the case of the 2022 revision, on Banco de España estimates, higher commodity prices, increased uncertainty and the lower growth of world markets will reduce growth by 0.7 pp, 0.6 pp and 0.5 pp, respectively. These factors by far outweigh others operating in the opposite direction. These include the fact that, on the latest Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) figures published,2 GDP grew more vigorously in the second half of 2021 than anticipated in the December projection exercise. Likewise operating in favour of output growth is the stimulus provided by the measures included in the National Plan to respond to the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine, approved on 29 March by the Spanish Cabinet,3 to which I will refer briefly later on. In any event, assuming that the war will not extend over a long time horizon, activity will continue to be underpinned by the foreseeable improvement in the epidemiological  1  See “Macroeconomic projections for the Spanish economy (2022-2024)”, Box 1, “Quarterly report on the Spanish economy”, Economic Bulletin, 1/2022, Banco de España. 2 Specifically, the new QNA figures revise the GDP growth rate in 2022 upwards by 0.8 pp. 3  The projections do not incorporate estimates relating to the proposal submitted to the European Commission by the Spanish and Portuguese Governments to reduce the impact of higher gas prices on wholesale electricity prices, because it is not yet clear how this measure will ultimately materialise.

Luis M Linde: Islamic finance – growing importance and regulatory challenge Welcoming remarks by Mr Luis M Linde, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the European Forum on Islamic Finance, organized by the Islamic Financial Services Board (Madrid), Madrid, 24 May 2016. *  *  *  Mr. Jaseem Ahmed, Secretary-General of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB); Mr. Guillermo de la Dehesa, Chairman of the International Advisory Board of IE Business School; colleagues, ladies and gentlemen: It is a pleasure for me to welcome you all to the European Forum on Islamic Finance. This is the fifth European Forum since 2005, after the previous fora in Luxembourg, Germany, France and Italy. Following the tradition established by other European central banks, we are glad to support this event, organised by the IFSB. I would also like to thank the IE Business School for their hospitality in hosting the Forum in Madrid today. The purpose of this European Forum is to gain a better grasp of the specifics of Islamic Finance and its development, which has been particularly noticeable in the last decade. In this respect, I would like to stress two relevant aspects of Islamic Finance in my opening remarks: FIRST, its growing importance in international finance; and SECOND, the ongoing regulatory efforts to facilitate its insertion in international markets.
On the asset side of the balance sheet, the normalized size of the securities portfolio is one consistent with the longer-run trends in currency and other liabilities. However, even after the Fed normalizes the size of its balance sheet, the composition of its securities portfolio will not yet be “normal,” as it will not consist primarily of Treasury securities. As you can see from Figure 8, market participants expect that the domestic securities portfolio could contain roughly $ billion in agency MBS on average in 2025. 17  “The Chairman suggested that the Committee would likely resume a discussion of operating frameworks in the fall.” See Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, July 31 – August 1, 2018. 7  The Dynamics Between Reserve Levels and Short-Term Rates As the portfolio shrinks and the level of reserve balances declines, how will we know if we are transitioning from an environment characterized by abundant reserves to one characterized by scarce reserves? 18 To address this question and understand how the level of reserves is related to short-term interest rates, we need to review some fundamentals. In the academic literature on monetary policy implementation, models for the behavior of the overnight interbank rate generally boil down to its relationship with the stock of bank reserves. 19 These models generally find that as reserve balances decline, the overnight interest rate goes up, but not uniformly.

These small value purchases are concentrated in newly issued agency MBS in the To-Be-Announced (TBA) market, which is expected to undergo changes next year due to the FHFA’s Single Security Initiative and the introduction of Uniform MBS (UMBS). Given these changes, the Desk plans to develop its operational readiness for conducting transactions in UMBS and, to more efficiently manage the SOMA portfolio, convert some of its agency MBS holdings to UMBS where appropriate. See the Statement Regarding Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities, September 14, 2018. 14  5  limited impact from the reduction in holdings on Treasury yields and MBS spreads thus far. As shown in Figure 6, comparing a matched sample of survey respondents in our July 2017 surveys to the September 2018 surveys, the expected impact on 10-year Treasury yields and 30-year MBS option-adjusted spreads (OAS) during the two-year period following implementation of the change to the reinvestment policy has declined, likely in part reflecting expectations for the balance sheet to normalize at a larger size. 15 Looking forward, the median respondent currently anticipates the cumulative impact over the next two years to be 17 basis points for the 10-year Treasury yield, and 12 basis points for the 30-year MBS OAS. This gradual expected increase contrasts with the experience of the so-called “taper tantrum” in 2013, which showed that markets can have outsized and sharp reactions to changes in balance sheet policy even before they happen.
Let us examine the extent to which financial inclusion for women has taken place through the existing institutional network and assess the deficiencies and gaps, although we may not be able to do a comprehensive analysis. The participation of women in credit programs as at end December 2007 is given in the following table: Table III Women’s participation in the Credit Programmes as at December 2007 Value  No. of Loans Institution  Rs. mn  Female  Total  50,804  43,277  94,081  1,614  N.A. *  N.A. *  N.A. *  N.A. *  3. Sanasa Development Bank  321,687  246,896  568,583  13,000  43.42  Thrift & Credit Societies  36,726  85,696  122,422  2,816  70.00  4. Cooperative Rural Banks (CRBs)  316,142  135,490  451,632  8,999.0  30.00  5. Poverty Alleviation Microfinance Project (PAMP)  12,604  39,388  51,992  1,058.4  75.76  6. Small Farmers & Landless Credit Project (SFLCP)  669  8,681  9,350  244.5  92.84  11,540  23,081  34,621  1,986  66.67  1. Regional Development Banks (RDBs) 2. Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs)  7.

See Barry Eichengreen and Marc Flandreau, “The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Rise of the Dollar as an International Currency, 1914– 1939,” Open Economies Review 23, no. 1 (2012): 57–87. 9 In his report on the discount system in Europe, Paul Warburg wrote that the “annual tribute to Europe resulting  from our primitive financial system is not merely a waste of money, but reflects upon the dignity of a nation and economic importance of the United States.” See Paul Warburg, The Discount System in Europe (Washington: Government Printing Office, 61st Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Doc 402, 1910), 9. 10 For the guarantee, from 1921 until 1974 when the New York Fed discontinued the guarantee option on banker’s  acceptances, the New York Fed charged 1/8th of 1% on the face amount of banker’s acceptances purchased on behalf of foreign central bank accountholders. Dollar banker’s acceptances became a favored investment instrument by foreign central banks in the days before the introduction of the first regularly issued U.S. Treasury bill in 1929. 11 The maintenance of gold vaults and reciprocal gold custody accounts among major central banks provided  significant operational advantages for the functioning of the international gold standard. In addition to the safety of storing gold with another central bank, through the practice of earmarking central banks could settle accounts with one another without the need to physically deliver gold bullion. This was especially useful in periods, such as wartime, when navigation of sea lanes could be impeded.
To make these changes the banks put in place programmes to re-allocate accounts to the right side of their ring-fences in a way which minimised disruption for customers. These changes are all but complete, and have taken place without most account holders needing to take any action themselves. 4 These legal processes were considered sufficiently important that they were included in a list compiled by The Lawyer of the twenty biggest and most interesting court cases to follow in 2018. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  4  While the change that ring-fencing brings about is substantial for the banking sector, it has been implemented – as intended – with little impact on the public. And when the regime goes live in January, the majority of the banks’ customers and counterparties should notice little substantive difference to the services they receive day-to-day. How will the banks operate from 2019? But what changes will be happening within the banking system? Ring-fencing will change how banking groups are structured and how they are managed. Ring-fencing will also influence the evolution of the industry as a whole. The legislation specifies the activities that must be conducted by ring-fenced banks, as well as the activities they are prohibited from undertaking. Any activities falling outside those two categories – for example taking deposits from large corporates, or mortgage and credit card lending – can sit either side of the ring-fence in the new group structures.

After separating its retail activity in a ring-fenced bank, the group will need to meet several sets of prudential requirements; those for the ring-fenced bank, those for the group and those for any entities sitting outside the ring-fence. That means the PRA needs to set requirements – covering capital, liquidity, governance, and so on – for more entities within each banking group. More legal entities means more bank boards. The PRA will review the effectiveness of boards and how the different boards in a group interact with each other. We will supervise the transactions and interdependencies between members of the group, including any dedicated entities set up to provide services to ring-fenced banks, to ensure these are consistent with the objectives of ring-fencing. 7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  7  We will be transparent in how we undertake our ring-fencing responsibilities. The PRA has recently set out its approach to supervision, including in respect of ring-fenced banks.7 We will also publish an annual assessment of ring-fencing. From next year, the PRA will report annually to Parliament on the steps the banks have taken to implement ring-fencing and their level of compliance. We will also assess the extent to which the new regime is meeting the aims set by Government. This complements the independent review of ring-fencing required by the legislation to be started before 2021.
Monetary policy has a limited capacity to affect the real economy When the Riksbank decides on the repo rate, we assume that it will take one to two years before the decision has its full impact. Our monetary policy is therefore based on forecasts of inflation and economic developments over the coming three years. However, as I have said, it is particularly difficult to make forecasts right now as a result of the prevailing uncertainty. When we make our decisions we take into account both the inflation outlook and the prospects for the real economy. Depending on what type of shock the economy is exposed to, we can allow it to take time for inflation to return to the target and in this way avoid overly large fluctuations in employment and production. However, it is now generally accepted that monetary policy cannot be used to attain a permanently lower level of unemployment. Many people believed this was possible a while ago when A. W. Phillips found a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation at the end of the 1950s, 5 a relationship usually called the Phillips curve. This shows that higher  5  Phillips actually studied the relationship between wages and unemployment, but later studies indicated a similar relationship between inflation and unemployment, Phillips, A. W, (1958) “The relationship between unemployment and the rate of change of money wages in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957”, Economica, 25, pp. 283–299. BIS Review 58/2010  3  employment can be achieved at the cost of higher inflation.

One positive indicator would be if firms identify and rectify individual misconduct cases quickly. Another would the absence of widespread conduct issues across firms. But we will want also to understand how the Code is affecting market functioning in a deeper sense. To this end, the GFXC plans to survey regularly market participants. This will enable us to track some of the less tangible indications of success, such how the Code is impacting and improving behaviours – transparency around pre-hedging for example – and how the Code is being embedded in the market through firms’ adherence expectations of their counterparties. An initial survey will be launched later this month, to give a benchmark against which subsequent survey results can be compared. I have no doubt of the commitment of many in the market to ensure success. What is needed now is to embed that attitude across the market as a whole and to ensure that our efforts so far translate into real improvements. Improved culture and attitudes regarding market conduct;  Improved confidence for end users that they are transacting at competitive prices;  And ultimately, a market that more effectively serves its economic purpose. So in closing I would ask again for your help in achieving that change. The success of the Code will depend above all else on the continued efforts of all involved in the market. Central bankers will remain deeply engaged, but to secure success we will be relying on the partnership with market participants that we have fostered.