samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Small Norwegian banks that previously borrowed from large banks are now turning directly to Norges Bank for loans. In this period the central bank in Norway, as in other countries, has actually become a marketplace, and the only marketplace, for banks. With a view to curbing the effects of the turbulence Norges Bank has implemented a range of measures to boost liquidity in the banking system. Norges Bank has provided loans with maturities that are longer than normal and has expanded the list of eligible bank collateral for loans. The Storting (Norwegian parliament) has adopted a package providing for an arrangement whereby banks can exchange safe, but today illiquid residential mortgagebacked bonds for highly liquid government securities. Higher money market premiums have led to higher interest rates on loans to both households and firms. As most residential mortgages in Norway are floating-rate loans, money market rates have a greater bearing on Norwegian households than households in most other European countries. Liquidity measures in Norway and other countries have resulted in some decline in premiums. Combined with a reduction in Norges Bank’s key policy rate, this has prompted several banks to reduce their deposit and lending rates and to cancel previously announced increases. Interest rates have now fallen back to levels observed before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Oil prices have fallen by more than USD 80 after peaking in July. Growth in oil demand has fallen as a result of weaker economic developments.

Some investments may be postponed if oil prices fall permanently below USD 60-70 per barrel, especially small investments and upgrades of fields in operation. Exploration activity may also be cut back. Large field development projects are probably being affected only to a limited extent, while small companies and smaller investment projects may be adversely affected by the reduced availability of credit. Growth in the Norwegian economy slowed markedly in the first half of this year. The effects of the financial crisis will most probably be greater than envisaged only recently. The slowdown in the Norwegian economy seems to be occurring rapidly and to be pronounced. Mainland growth is projected to be very low in 2009, then recover in 2010 and 2011. Petroleum investment will buoy up activity. The central government budget will also boost growth in public demand for goods and services. In the Monetary Policy Report, the results of monetary policy assessments are illustrated in a chart showing projections for the interest rate, inflation and capacity utilisation in the economy. We have illustrated the uncertainty surrounding our projections using fan charts. The width of the fan charts is based on historical disturbances, and therefore expresses the average that covers periods of high and low uncertainty. There is now unusually high uncertainty surrounding future developments in inflation and output and hence surrounding interest rate developments. It is difficult to determine probabilities of different outcomes of the ongoing financial crisis.
Norges Bank’s bank lending survey indicates a gradual tightening of banks’ credit standards, but so far the effects of tighter credit have not come into evidence. Developments abroad may also influence the Norwegian economy through reduced trade. It may be more difficult to sell our export goods when growth is declining in other countries, and prices for our products may fall. Oil prices and other commodity prices have increased appreciably since 2002. The rise in commodity prices has primarily been fuelled by rapid economic growth, particularly in China and other emerging market economies. Conditions are still favourable for shipping and oil and gas, engineering industry, aluminium, ferroalloys and salmon. In the event of a persistent setback in world economic growth, the Norwegian economy will eventually feel the effects through lower exports. 12  BIS Review 65/2008  The interest rate differential between Norway and our trading partners has increased. Coupled with solid growth in the Norwegian economy and very high oil prices, this has resulted in an appreciation of the krone. In krone terms, this reduces prices for imported goods and services. A strong krone may also result in lower activity in the business sector and gradually translate into lower wage growth. The krone exchange rate shows monthly, quarterly and yearly variations. The long-term value of the krone is determined by changes in the terms of trade and permanent differences between domestic and external inflation and productivity. In recent years, the krone has appreciated.

Annual variations in inflation are now substantially smaller than they were in the 1970s and 1980s. Over the past ten years, average inflation has been somewhat lower than, although fairly close to, the target of 2.5 per cent. BIS Review 65/1008  1  Inflation measured by the CPI varies from month to month, primarily as a result of wide fluctuations in electricity prices, but also due to other temporary disturbances. The rise in the CPI-ATE shows inflation adjusted for one-time effects of tax changes and excluding energy products. Inflation, measured this way, has risen since summer 2006. One disadvantage of this indicator is that it does not only exclude the temporary effects on electricity prices of, for example, changes in the weather; it also excludes more persistent developments in energy prices. Energy prices have risen more than other prices for a fairly long period, leading to an average year-on-year rise in the CPI over the past 5-10 years that has been close to ½ per cent higher than the rise in the CPI-ATE. Other available measures of underlying inflation also suggest that inflation has moved up. While the year-on-year rise in the CPI-ATE is now 2.4 per cent, other measures of underlying inflation are above 3 per cent. 2  BIS Review 65/2008  Recently, inflation has been somewhat higher than our projections from last year. Inflation was broadly in line with expectations through 2007. In 2006, inflation was considerably lower than projected at the beginning of the year.
My remarks today will focus on the implications for the strategic direction of the Islamic financial industry taking into consideration the lessons learned from such financial turbulence including the current crisis. As Islamic finance becomes an integral part of the international financial system, it will be increasingly tested by such developments. History has shown that the world will continue to be plagued by such crises. The key for the Islamic financial industry is therefore to ensure that it would not be a source of such financial instability and is able to achieve a level of resilience that would ensure its sustainability. Lessons learned from systemic banking crisis The world has experienced more than 124 distinct banking crises in the recent 27 years. 1 While the triggering factors that precipitated financial crisis have been different, for most, it resulted in a general loss of confidence and a downward spiral in asset prices. Such a crisis was experienced in the Asian region just over ten years ago. Following the lessons that were learnt from this experience, Asia has emerged in a better position to manage the spill over effects of the current financial turmoil. The key elements in the efforts have been the strengthening of the foundations that accord the resilience to withstand shocks to the system and that will ensure sustainability through episodes of such turmoil. There are several similarities in the current financial crisis and the Asian financial crisis.

Such efforts, among others need to involve three basic aspects. This includes having the mechanism and vehicle to preserve short-term liquidity, to remove troubled assets from the balance sheets of financial institutions and to recapitalise Islamic financial institutions. In the case of Malaysia , this infrastructure has been put in place. The Central Bank has a range of Islamic financial instruments to manage liquidity in the financial system. This is supported by a well developed Islamic money market. In addition, the financial safety net framework in Malaysia encompasses the lender of last resort facility and a comprehensive deposit insurance system that provides coverage for both conventional and Islamic deposits. 4  BIS Review 145/2008  The Deposit Insurance Corporation has also been given sufficient statutory powers to ensure a prompt, effective and least cost resolution to safeguard the stability of the Islamic financial system. This entails among others, the regulatory powers and mandate to ensure expedient resolution of financial institutions in distress. Our supervisory oversight also subjects the Islamic financial institutions to periodical stress testing to assess whether the institutions would be able to cope in extreme conditions. Global ramifications of the crisis also calls for more concerted efforts at the international level to avert an escalation of the scale of a crisis. Central to this is to have coordinated initiatives, by having in place on-going assessments of any vulnerabilities in the Islamic financial system so as to avoid crisis.
Krugman, Paul (2014), “Inflation Targets Reconsidered”, essay presented at the ECB Sintra conference, May. Lilley, Andrew and Kenneth Rogoff (2019), “The Case for Implementing Effective Negative Interest Rate Policy”, essay presented at “Strategies For Monetary Policy: A Policy Conference”, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, May 4, 2019. Lindbeck Assar, Per Molander, Torsten Persson, Olof Petersson, Agnar Sandmo, Birgitta Swedenborg and Niels Thygesen (1994), Turning Sweden Around, MIT Press. Nyberg, Lars (2005), House price developments and monetary policy. Speech at Evli Bank, Stockholm, 19 December. Sveriges Riksbank. Petri, Gunnar (2017), Hans Järta – En biografi [Hans Järta – A biography] (In Swedish) Historiska Media, Lund. Quarles, Randal K. (2019), “Monetary policy and financial stability,” remarks at “Developments in Empirical Macroeconomics”, a research conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Washington, D.C. Rogoff, Kenneth (2017), “Dealing with Monetary Paralysis at the Zero Bound”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 31(3), pp. 47-66. Rosengren, Eric S. (2015), “Changing economic relationships: Implications for monetary policy and simple monetary policy rules”, speech on 16 April, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 17 [21]  Svensson, Lars E. O. (2017), “Cost-benefit analysis of leaning against the wind”, Journal of Monetary Economics 90, pp. 193-213. Sveriges Riksbank (2017), “The Riksbank’s e-krona project”, Report 1, September 2017. Sveriges Riksbank (2018a), “Account of monetary policy 2018”, Sveriges Riksbank. Sveriges Riksbank (2018b), “The Riksbank’s e-krona project”, Report 2, October 2018. Sveriges Riksdag (1897) Riksdag minutes, Second Chamber, No. 30, Saturday 24 April.

The FATF’s Consultation Paper is useful in spelling out the main elements of the due diligence process, namely: •  to identify the direct customer;  •  to verify the customer’s identity;  •  to identify the person with beneficial ownership and control, who may be different from the direct customer;  •  to verify the identity of the beneficial owner and/or the person on whose behalf a transaction is being conducted; and  •  to conduct ongoing due diligence and scrutiny. A number of features stand out from this. First, the process of know your customer is a two-stage process - identification and verification. Second, there is a clear obligation on institutions to look behind the corporate veil, nominee or trustee to the ultimate beneficial owner. If necessary, this means following the chain of ownership or control to the natural persons at the very end of the chain. There are obvious practical difficulties in this, which we can discuss with the industry. But the basic issue is whether it is safe for institutions to establish a banking relationship if they do not really know with whom they are dealing. The third point to note is that the due diligence process does not apply simply at the time the relationship with the customer is entered into. It must be an ongoing process using detection and reporting mechanisms that can pick up large or unusual transactions.
Institutions and markets seem better positioned to handle a substantial degree of stress. Shocks may be less likely to result in the type of trend amplifying, self-reinforcing dynamic for sustained periods of time that can threaten the stability of the financial system. But it is important to recognize that that we do not know a lot about the underlying dynamics of financial crises in the context of the evolving financial system I have described. It is also worth reflecting on the fact that the favorable judgment of U.S. financial resilience at present is rooted in a  BIS Review 55/2004  3  period of lower overall volatility in macroeconomic outcomes, with lower inflation and less variability in inflation, and shorter and shallower recessions. Financial innovation has brought about a dramatic increase in the opportunities for diversification and risk transfer and in the sophistication of risk management, but it is unlikely to have brought an end to the periodic tendency of markets to experience waves of mania and panic. The systemically significant financial institutions are larger and stronger than in the past, but they are not invulnerable, and the impact of a failure would be greater. And it would be imprudent to expect that the lower overall magnitude of recent macroeconomic shocks that has contributed to lower volatility in growth and inflation outcomes will be with us indefinitely. What are the implications of these changes for how we think about managing systemic risk in the United States?

The ambition is to complete the full introduction of instant payments in the European Union by the end of 2021. The following steps are needed to achieve this goal: - Assess the need for mandatory adherence to the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme in euro (SCT Inst.) by the end of 2021 and determining the criteria according to which payment service providers will be subject by this obligation; - Assess whether to adopt a legislative prohibition on charging instant payments higher than standard credit transfers; - Ensuring cross-border connectivity and interoperability of payment systems for instant payments in euro through the TIPS service of the ECB-operated TARGET 2 payment system. All payment service providers that have joined the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme (SCT Inst.) and are reachable in TARGET 2, should be reachable either as a participant or as an reachable party (i.e., through another payment service provider that is a participant) and in the TARGET 2 instant payment service TIPS by the end of 2021; - Developing cross-currency instant payments in the European Union, which will be ensured by the inclusion of currencies other than the euro in the TARGET 2 service for instant payments - TIPS, as was the case with the Swedish krona in 2020; - Encouraging the establishment of links between payment systems processing instant payments in the European Union and those of third countries offering the same service, provided that the standards for fraud prevention, money laundering, etc. are met. 4.
Just before Christmas we lengthened the maturity of the second last main refinancing operation from one to two weeks, thus facilitating the coverage of the year-end liquidity needs of banks. For this specific operation, we announced that we would satisfy all bids received at 4.21 percent or above, the 4.21 percent level being the weighted average rate of the previous main refinancing operation one week before. This action, combined with our liquidity-absorbing operations until 4 January, contributed to a smooth end of the year in the euro area by keeping short-term interest rates close to the ECB’s minimum bid rate. Overall, the ECB’s actions permitted to maintain very short-term rates close to the ECB’s policy rate. The tensions, which have been observed in the longer term money market rates in euro, are due in particular to the persistence of uncertainties surrounding the financial health and liquidity needs of financial institutions as well as the impact of the ongoing global financial market correction, with a general re-appreciation of risks. These tensions have receded whilst remaining significant. By reducing the volatility of the very short-term rates around the key policy rate of the ECB and by containing pressures in the interbank term money market, the ECB’s liquidity operations have contributed to a better resilience of the European financial system without – of course – eliminating the causes of the tensions, originating outside the money market. During this tumultuous period, the Eurosystem remained, as usual, in close contact with other major central banks.

Jean-Claude Trichet: Overview of recent euro area developments and the effects of globalisation on prices and real estate Speech by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, at the meeting of the Management Board of the CDU, Wiesbaden, 5 January 2008. *  *  *  It is a great pleasure for me to be invited as a guest speaker here today. Let me briefly sketch out the main topics I want to address. First, I will present to you our views on the current economic situation in the euro area. Then, I will explain the ECB’s liquidity operations following the tensions in the money markets since August last year as well as our views on the stability of the euro area financial system. To conclude, I will say a word upon the effects of globalisation on price developments and on developments in the real estate sector. Economic and monetary developments Let me first say that we are presently in the purdah period, namely within a week before the next decision meeting of the Governing Council. Nothing in what I will say should be interpreted in terms of our future decision next Thursday. I will stick to explaining what has been our diagnosis and judgment on the occasion of our last meeting.
By presenting our handiwork, we started a debate. It has brought us criticism and comment on all sides. Uncomfortable though that may be, the debate is positive. Over time it is important in establishing a consensus behind our targets. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  8  And in its annual public letter to us regarding our financial stability objectives, the Government has welcomed the level of resilience we have built in the banking system.8 With clear preferences in law, a requirement to show our handiwork to establish our goals, and a framework to debate those goals, there is little danger of us following something other than the mandate we’ve been given. The first condition for being citizens in service is met. However, a second challenge remains. Challenge 2: monitoring that the intent is being delivered Having established a target for resilience in some part of the system, how can we be held to account for then meeting it? There’s no financial stability equivalent of measuring inflation each month to see if it’s close to 2%. The real test comes only when a bad shock happens and the resilience of the system is tested. It will be clear then whether we had built in too little, or too much, resilience. But such events are rare. So we have a duty to give Parliament the means to check in real time that we’re delivering the levels of resilience that we’ve said we’re targeting.

Ravi Menon: Introducing Mark Carney Introductory remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the 2014 Monetary Authority of Singapore Lecture, Singapore, 17 November 2014. *  *  *  Mr Mark Carney, Governor, Bank of England, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman, MAS, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Ambassadors, distinguished guests, friends and colleagues, good morning, Welcome to the eighth MAS Lecture. First held in 2000, the MAS Lecture has over the years featured several eminent members of the international financial community who have offered their perspectives on important economic and financial issues. Today, Mark Carney joins that distinguished band of leaders in finance, and it is my pleasure to introduce him. Carney has the rare distinction of serving as governor for not just one central bank but two: •  From 2008 to 2013, Carney was Governor of the Bank of Canada, playing a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst effects of the Global Financial Crisis. •  And since the middle of last year, he has been Governor of the Bank of England, the first time that a non-Briton has taken the helm of that hallowed institution in its 320-year history. •  Perhaps the transition was made easier by the fact that the appointments of both the Governor of the Bank of England and that of the Bank of Canada are made in the name of the Queen.
Madam Managing Director, as your bank introduces these products on the market, please ensure that the pricing aspect is also critically looked at. Many a time a good product is introduced on the market yet it is out of reach of ordinary citizens due to the costs associated with the products. Consumers of these products expect an affordable service if indeed these are new and innovative products. Banks need to show more commitment to the growth and  BIS Review 34/2009  1  development of the country by encouraging more Zambians to open bank accounts through provision of easily accessible and affordable products and services. As I end my remarks, I want to remind all players in the financial sector that some of the challenges we face in our country today can indeed be mitigated by all stakeholders playing their respective roles. In particular, we have seen food prices increasing dramatically in the past few months. This is despite Zambia possess vast arable land, relatively good weather and plenty of fresh water. Further, Zambia is predominantly an agricultural country, but lending to agriculture has been limited. The challenge therefore is to devise financial products that meet the requirements of the sector while at the same time devise means of protecting the financial institutions from the risks associated with lending to the agricultural sector. A vibrant Agriculture sector will no doubt lead to a vibrant economy less dependent on the mining sector.

Under your leadership the bank has continued to bring to the banking sector an array of products and services that provide convenient alternative channels that lead to customer satisfaction and improved service delivery. The introduction of new products and services such as mobile banking, internet banking and e-statements provide customers with greater flexibility in their banking requirements, enabling them to transact at their own convenience, knowing that their finances are completely secure. This will no doubt enhance customer confidence in the banking system in Zambia. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am reliably informed that the m-Banking product we are launching today, will allow the bank to reach out to many more customers. This will increase the number of people with access to the financial system. At Bank of Zambia, we believe strongly that wider access to financial services through positive action by the banking community is vital. We also believe that the driving force will be banks and other financial institutions searching for new, profitable market opportunities. Furthermore, a key element in the strategy of poverty alleviation is the provision of financial services to the majority of our people especially the small and micro entrepreneurs who are financially excluded. Access to improved financial services, through the provision of better ways of accumulating savings and access to credit to augment accumulated savings, avails funds for investment in income generating projects that help the public to lay foundation for better standards of living for themselves and their families.