samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Launch of new non-standard measures and their impact Faced with this critical situation, the Eurosystem adopted a two-pronged strategy. First, it offered ample liquidity at very long maturity to prevent funding issues from igniting a potentially destructive deleveraging process. Second, it widened the eligible collateral to facilitate access to the liquidity and the provision of credit to SMEs. Specifically, on 8 December 2011, the ECB announced the following initiatives. First, the ECB said it would launch two longer-term refinancing operations (LTROs) with a maturity of 36 months. The LTROs were to be conducted as fixed-rate tender procedures with full allotment, with the interest rate fixed at the average rate of the main refinancing operations over the life of the respective operation. To increase the flexibility of the operations and to cater for different liquidity needs, counterparties were offered the option to repay after one year any part of the allotted amounts. Second, the ECB decided to increase collateral availability by allowing national central banks, among other things, to accept as collateral additional performing credit claims (i.e. bank loans) that satisfy specific eligibility criteria. As an example, the Banque de France has accepted real estate residential loans with a mortgage or first-rank privilege, credit claims denominated in US dollars and export credit claims guaranteed by Coface.

Also, in addition to the ABSs that were already eligible for Eurosystem operations, the ECB would accept as eligible collateral ABSs with a second best rating at issuance and over the lifetime of A- or above, the underlying assets of which comprise residential mortgages and loans to SMEs. Additional credit claims not complying with the regular minimum credit quality threshold applied to collateral eligible for Eurosystem credit operations are subject to increased haircuts to aim at achieving risk equivalence with the regular set of eligible collateral. The Eurosystem allotted € billion with the first three-year LTRO on 21 December 2011. Accounting for other operations that matured and settled within that week, however, the net liquidity increase was € billion. In the second three-year LTRO, on 29 February, the Eurosystem provided credit institutions with an additional gross amount of € billion. Again, taking into account maturing operations, the net liquidity injection was around € billion. Counterparties bidding in the three-year LTROs can be divided into two groups: one group consists of many small banks, bidding for comparatively small amounts, while the other group comprises large banks and accounts for the main share of the overall allotment amount. A distinctive feature of the second operation was the higher number of bidders, 800, as opposed to 523 in the first operation. The majority of bidders in the second LTRO were small banks from euro area countries where the economic conditions are stronger, with more than half of the bidders bidding for € million or less.
Central banks need to define the conditions under which they provide these two types of liquidity. In particular, they need to decide on the fee/interest they wish to charge and on the level and type of collateral they consider appropriate. Allow me to discuss briefly both features. 2  2  For further details see Charles M. Kahn (2006): Why pay? An introduction to payment economics. BIS Review 130/2007  Central banks typically provide intraday liquidity on more generous terms than overnight credit. Why? To answer this question, consider the following alternatives: imagine that central banks would only ask for interest when credit spans a weekend, then we would have intra-week credit. Or, more extremely, imagine that interest would be charged only for credit spanning the year-end. Or why don’t central banks require banks to settle every hour, such that every end of hour would be what today is an end of day, with credit bridging every end of hour being charged at the monetary policy interest rate. I think that the reason why central banks choose a full day as the demarcation line reflects in particular three considerations. First, economic projects have rarely, if ever, a lifetime of less than a day, so there is no need to impose positive interest rates at the appropriate policy level intraday from a transmission mechanism perspective.

In addition, it also had to weigh carefully the advantages of providing lender-of-last-resort assistance to the banking system to avoid a drop in its revenue stream against the risk of lending to an insolvent institution and making a loss that could decrease its capital base and threaten its reputation as the supplier of the ultimate settlement asset. Similarly, central banks had a natural interest in ensuring the ability of the banking sector as a whole to meet the public’s demand for liquidity. The reason for this is that if it allowed a  1  For further details see Stephen Millard and Victoria Saporta (2005): Central banks and payment systems: Past, present, and future. See also Ben Norman, Rachel Shaw and George Speight (2006): The history of interbank settlement arrangements: exploring central banks’ role in payment systems. BIS Review 130/2007  1  solvent commercial bank to fail as a result of a bank run, it would only aggravate the situation and this could ultimately result in a more general run on the banking system and ultimately on itself. As a result, financial stability became a concern for central banks. Moreover, for the central bank as the provider of the ultimate settlement asset, it was also important to maintain monetary stability. In particular, if the central bank printed more and more of its banknotes without a corresponding increase in the demand for them, the notes would fall in value relative to those of other banks.
Muhammad bin Ibrahim: New and emerging Islamic finance jurisdictions – opportunities and challenges ahead Remarks by Mr Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the 11th Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) Summit, Session 5: Panel Discussion on “New and Emerging Islamic Finance Jurisdictions: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead”, Port Louis, Mauritius, 22 May 2014. *  *  *  I have taken great liberty in making my remarks today. I must admit these remarks are very much Malaysian-centric. I shall try to synthesise some of the lessons learnt by Malaysia that might be useful to new and emerging Islamic finance jurisdictions. These lessons are by no means exhaustive. Let me start with some points to set the context of my remarks. For new and emerging Islamic finance jurisdictions, they can learn from the experiences of other more established Islamic finance centres. These jurisdictions have the opportunity to jump start into 30 years of modern Islamic finance practices. They could move fast, avoid expensive pitfalls and adopt best practices. I will raise nine points that I hope will provide some perspectives on the issues raised. Islamic finance is for all (Gain acceptance). Islamic finance is for all. Its appeal extends to a larger global community, regardless of their faith and origins. Islamic finance is not only for the Muslims. Islamic finance cannot be successful if it is only supported by Muslims. Many now recognise that the inherent characteristics of Islamic finance are consistent with universal values.

Islamic finance has proven beyond reasonable doubts its viability and the value proposition that it brings. Many of its tenets contribute to economic and financial stability; for example, restrictions on overleveraging; linkage of transactional activities to the real economy and a requirement for strong governance and transparency. In Malaysia, Islamic finance has gained acceptance amongst all, irrespective of race or religion. Non-Muslims make up more than 50 percent of the customer base of Islamic banks. Similarly the sukuk market that totalled USD160 billion as at December 2013 are characterised by the involvement of diverse set of players and of all creed. The players include multinational corporations and institutions such as the World Bank, Toyota, Nomura Holding Japan, AEON Credit and Shell to name a few. Islamic finance is competitive and able to fulfil the needs of the modern globalised economy. It competes on an equal basis with conventional finance. It is in the mainstream and no more a novelty. It can stand on its own. From my experience, the reason why nonMuslims use Islamic finance is that it makes business sense and it is as competitive and provides a welcome alternative to conventional banking. The availability of established global best practices and standards. There are established global best practices and international standards in Islamic finance. New and emerging jurisdictions need not go to the trial and error period of the more established centres. New entrants can avoid costly mistakes. Global best practices, standards can be adopted and adapted to local circumstances.
Krzysztof Rybiński: Global imbalances and implications for emerging markets Address by Mr Krzysztof Rybiński, Deputy President of the National Bank of Poland, at the Panel Discussion on Scenarios for Emerging Markets at the OKB Roundtable, Vienna, 14-15 December 2006. Views presented here are my own and they do not represent the official position of the National Bank of Poland. Here I only sketch the key arguments, extensive discussion of issues related to global imbalances is presented on my blog www.rybinski.eu. *  *  *  ‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ landing are aeronautical terms. Many decades ago plane crashes were so alarmingly frequent, that some believed that every flying plane was an accident waiting to happen. Today, the advance of technology makes the past concerns look ridiculous; plane crashes are rare and require exceptionally adverse weather conditions, human failure or a terrorist attack. Likewise, large current account deficit in the United States and large current account surpluses in China and oil-exporting countries, jointly labeled as global imbalances are considered as unstable just as planes used to be several decades ago. Similar aeronautical vocabulary – hard landing, soft landing, crash etc. – is also used to describe the range of possible outcomes for the global economy, which embarked on a global imbalances journey about ten years ago 1 .

For simplification, we assume that there are only two possible financial market states: either normal and calm times or a financial stress situation. The consequences of the stress will depend on the level of the financial imbalances. As I indicated earlier, experience shows that a downturn will generally be more pronounced, the more financial imbalances have developed in advance. The imbalances also increase the likelihood of a stress situation. Within this framework, monetary policy can influence the risk in the financial system. Increased risk of instability engenders lower expected future economic activity. When the  6  6  Janet L. Yellen (2014): “Monetary Policy and Financial Stability”, (2. July 2014). BIS central bankers’ speeches  central bank assesses the future path of inflation and output, it has an incentive to dampen the build-up of financial imbalances. Let me illustrate by means of this framework how a central bank can contribute to a smoother path for inflation, output and employment over time when it takes into account that financial imbalances may develop. Chart: Financial stress does not arise As a point of departure, let us look at a situation that is not unlike the one experienced in recent years: External interest rates fall and there are prospects that they will remain low for a long period. The decline in external interest rates results in a widening of the differential between Norwegian and external interest rates, leading to an appreciation of the krone exchange rate.
The requirement is intended to ensure that banks build up an extra capital buffer when systemic risk increases. Loan-to-value ceilings on mortgage loans may also be imposed. On this point, the Spanish model of statistical provisions, introduced by Banco de España as early as 2000, has proved valuable. At the end of 2007, Spanish banks held as much as 1.3 per cent of total assets in these provisions, nearly a fourth of total regulatory capital. Third, the authorities must acquire tools that enable banks to be wound up in an orderly manner. In this context, it is important that the structure of banking groups is transparent. Banks must also draw up plans for their own liquidation in the event of difficulties. Owners and creditors – not taxpayers – must bear the losses. The interest rate on banks’ funding will then reflect the risk they take rather than an implicit government guarantee. This will in itself have a preventive effect. The Basel Committee has decided on important measures. If countries are able to enforce new rules faster than the minimum standard of 2018, this should be welcomed. Let me now turn to the mitigating policies; provisions to help societies through the crisis with as little human cost as possible. The crisis has been eased by active economic policy. Monetary policy has been expansionary.

Here we see that the share of new mortgage borrowing by applicants of all credit scores below the highest quartile declined, while that of the highest quartile increased from about 40 percent to 70 percent. This suggests that lenders were far more selective in their underwriting standards for mortgages than they had been in the period between 2000 and 2006. Many of these powerful forces of demand and supply that together led to the decline in household borrowing, and hence to the fall-off in resources available for consumption, have either diminished or slowly reversed as the economic recovery that began in 2009 has continued. First, equity values, which dropped 51% between October 2007 and March 2009, as measured by the S&P 500 index, have recovered significantly, rising by almost 140% percent through the end of 2013 Chart 8 (Stock Market Wealth also Fell Sharply, 2nd half). In addition, as seen in Chart 9 (House Prices Peaked and Fell Precipitously, 2nd half) house prices have finally begun to recover, and have been doing so on a broad geographical basis. House prices are up 21 percent since their nadir in 2011. This has helped restore owners’ equity in their homes Chart 10 (Result was a huge decline in Owners’ Equity in HH RE, 2nd half). In sum, as seen in Chart 11 (Household Net Worth), aggregate household wealth has recovered substantially as a percent of disposable income, albeit with a lesser contribution from housing and a greater contribution from corporate equities.
Inflation: outcomes and the main scenario Percentage 12-month change 6  6  KPI CPI UND1X  5  5  UNDINHX UNDIMPX  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2 1995  -2 1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  BIS Review 37/2002  9

BIS Review 35/2009  3  to a great extent to our policy framework that ensures the solvency of our economy and to our sound financial system. As for the local bonds market, January stood out for its large corporate bond issuances. Meanwhile, the interest rate demanded from corporate bonds in the secondary market has been falling through all of this year, and is currently approaching its levels of last September. This drop owes exclusively to the decline in the interest rates on Central Bank documents, because the spread between public and corporate securities has increased significantly since September, reflecting the same global risk factors already mentioned (figure 5). Conclusions The global financial crisis has hit hard credit markets around the world. In some unfortunate cases, economies that faced this debacle from a fragile initial position, with high indebtedness or with fast credit growth, have faced drastic adjustments in local asset prices, output, and employment, with dire consequences on their living standards. Thanks to the fact that we prepared for years as a country to confront deteriorations of the external environment, our monetary policy has been able to adopt a clear countercyclical stance to lessen the effect on our economy of the global financial meltdown. We have seen that the aggressive reductions in the MPR implemented by the Board since January have begun to reflect on the borrowing conditions faced by households and firms. It is reasonable to expect this to continue in the coming weeks, especially after the MPR cut of last week.
It seems likely that a number of different factors played a role, including the increase in the pace and depth of an increasingly globalized economy and the accompanying increase in competition, policy reforms that produced more flexible financial, labor and product markets, pockets of improvement in fiscal policy, and perhaps a reduction in the size of shocks. These factors made the art of central banking easier in some respects, but they seem inadequate to fully explain the improvement in inflation outcomes. Better monetary policy choices seem likely to be a significant part of the story, and they will be critical in the future in determining whether these improvements are sustained. The sources of the improvement in the quality of monetary policy also are varied and complex. Some relate to overall improvements in knowledge of inflation dynamics and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Some are the result of a fundamental change in the tolerance of citizens for high inflation, which has transformed the political context in which central banks operate. Some of these gains seem principally the consequence of the actions of individuals and the quality of leadership at the helm of the central bank. Some are the result of evolution in the institutional arrangements of central banking.

During most of the 1970s, there was a darkening cloud over the perceived will and ability of the Fed to take action to reverse the rise in inflation, in the face of substantial political aversion to the perceived costs of disinflation. Memoirs of executive branch officials for the decades following the Treasury Accord are replete with references to attempts to influence the decisions of the FOMC. In 1978, Congress passed The Humphrey Hawkins Act which gave the Fed its present mandate of “maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates,” and this legislation established a more systematic schedule of reporting and testifying to the Congress. This is the mandate that governs the Fed today. Over this period of broad continuity in the legal framework of the Fed, U.S. monetary policy had its good moments and its less distinguished moments. The degree of legal independence we enjoyed at the beginning of the 1970s was not materially different from what existed at the end of the decade. The institutional framework for formal decision making was the same. The formal mandate was modified in 1978 with the addition of the explicit reference to price stability, but this change cannot explain the substantial difference in monetary policy outcomes over the last two and a half decades. An institutional framework that was not sufficient by itself to produce a consistent record of good  monetary policy decisions over the decade of the 1970s can’t be credited fully for the substantial improvements in monetary policy and economic outcomes that followed.
The G20, the Financial Stability Board and its Standing Committees, and the Standard Setting Bodies are all working hard and there is no lack of specific subjects to address – the Basel capital framework, the accounting standards for valuation and for off-balance sheet activities, capital requirements for trading activities, compensation practices, central counterparties, principles for the oversight of hedge funds, supervisory colleges, cross-border cooperation on crisis management, oversight regimes for the rating agencies, etc, etc. Some of you may already be suffering from meeting fatigue and, like me, somewhat sick of these subjects already; so I do not want to add to your agony. I am fortunate to have had the privilege of setting up and heading a central banking institution over a relatively long and exciting period in a significant international financial centre that is free and open. And as the time for retirement draws near, after sixteen and a half years, I do have a few reflections, from a rather different perspective than those of present pre-occupations, which I would like to share with others. They are nothing profound or technical; just a few issues that I have found particularly challenging over the years. The first concerns a conflict. This is the conflict between the private, particularly short term, interest of financial intermediaries in maximising profits, and the public interest of effective financial intermediation that provides crucial support to the economy.

2 CGFS (2015), ‘Regulatory change and monetary policy’, CGFS Papers No. 54, Committee on the Global  Financial System, Bank for International Settlements. 3 ICMA (2017), Regulatory Policy Newsletter, January. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
Arthur Yuen: Closing remarks on Regtech Closing remarks by Mr Arthur Yuen, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the HKMA's "Unlocking the Power of Regtech" Event, 30 June 2021. * * *  Introduction – The event puts the 4 actions into play 1. Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the HKMA, thank you all for attending today’s event. 2. Let me first reiterate why this event is important to us. As Eddie mentioned earlier, the HKMA is taking a series of actions to realise our Regtech 2025 vision. Today’s flagship event is part of our journey towards that vision of developing Hong Kong into a leading Regtech hub. 3. Our guest speakers have shared how Regtech is currently being used in their organisations. They have also talked about how Regtech is helping them – particularly in challenging times like these. We are all working towards the same goal – to accelerate the adoption of Regtech in our respective organisations and jurisdictions. We have seen the adoption of technology rapidly speeding up around the globe. And this event is a timely platform for sharing different ways of facilitating Regtech adoption and expanding the Regtech ecosystem. Why the HKMA is prioritising Regtech 4. Why is the HKMA prioritising the promotion of Regtech adoption? It is because we fully believe Regtech has the potential to bring massive benefits to everyone. Let me try to summarise the three most important benefits. 5.

Faced with such swings in sentiment, I want even more to stress today two ideas that are constant and consistent: (A) the ECB has been an innovative and efficient inflation-targeter, including in the Covid-crisis; (B) beyond Covid, the ECB has a powerful “quartet of tools” to keep its monetary policy as accommodative, and for as long as necessary. A. The ECB as an innovative and efficient inflation targeter In the first part of my remarks, let me try to answer three questions: is the ECB clear in its objective? is it consistent in its instruments? and is it efficient in its results? Page 2 sur 9 I. Is the ECB clear in its objective? For the ECB, like all other major central banks, our inflation objective is our lodestar. That means our definition of price stability should be simple, symmetric, and medium-term oriented. However, not everyone may perceive it this way. Hence, in the context of the Strategy Review launched by Christine Lagarde, we are currently reflecting on whether it can be communicated more clearly. To make it even simpler, we should reexamine the overly sophisticated qualifiers attached to the 2 % figure (“close to but below”). There is no benefit in appearing ambiguous about what we are aiming at. “Symmetric” refers to the fact that our objective is a target and cannot be a ceiling. Looking backwards, a central bank that has been successful in achieving its target on average will have had roughly as many episodes of inflation above its target as below.