samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Over the next two days I look forward to meeting with your elected officials in Newark, visiting Newark Now, sitting down with the Episcopal Community Development Housing Counselors, as well as meeting with New Jersey community bankers and credit union officials, visiting the manufacturer Accurate Box, touring Jersey City and learning more about the pharmaceutical industry – my staff has booked a packed schedule. The role of the New York fed By way of introduction, let me briefly review what the New York Fed does and what makes my job so interesting. As always, what I have to say reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve System or the Federal Open Market Committee, also known as the FOMC. I am vice chair of the committee and we meet eight times a year in Washington, D.C., to set interest rates and make other decisions about monetary policy. At every meeting of the FOMC, each committee member presents his or her current outlook for their region and for the overall economy. For these assessments, we augment input from our research departments with critical information about local economic conditions supplied by our board of directors, regional advisory councils and conversations with local stakeholders, such as the feedback I will get from you today. At the regional level, we continually track economic conditions in our District, and we have created a number of tools for this purpose.

The private sector has seen moderate gains, with growth in some of the key sectors I mentioned earlier, particularly professional and business services, education and health, and leisure and hospitality. Businesses in these sectors, on balance, expanded jobs at a faster rate than in the nation. But the state continues to shed jobs in manufacturing and residential construction. Notably, overall employment in the state has been weighed down by declines in public sector employment. Like many states, New Jersey faced large projected state budget deficits during the downturn, and, as in many states, the adjustment to those gaps included job cuts through a reduction in state government jobs and cuts in state funding for local government programs. Because the jobs recovery has been weak, there has been little progress in reducing unemployment. The unemployment rate among New Jersey residents currently stands at 9.5 percent, the same rate as a year ago, and slightly above the national rate. Underneath the slow overall job growth, however, there is a considerable amount of churning in the labor market. Taking a closer look at the patterns of job gains and losses during the recession and recovery reveals some interesting facts about the labor market in New Jersey. Of particular interest is that job creation in the state and the nation since the recession ended has been closely balanced between hiring into industries that lost jobs lost during the recession and jobs in expanding industries.
Corporate governance, risk management, transparency, disclosure, and internal control requirements in Islamic financial services industry should always be developed, and adjusted to meet the needs specified for Islamic banks, especially that an important part of the work of these banks is based on impression and reputation of the nature of their work. Therefore, these banks should be aware of the role entrusted to them, especially the ethical one. The nature of risks faced by Islamic banks may raise specific issues in terms of assets and inventory assessment, investment costs, regular income and recognition of losses, adequacy of guarantees and others. We must emphasize here the importance of continued development of mechanisms to cover such risks. This underlines the importance of integration into global financial markets, encouragement of competition, and provision of a proper climate for on-going innovation so that Islamic banks can consolidate their positions in all markets and boost their ability to provide products for all segments of customers. On the other hand, a controversy is sometimes raised and comparisons are made between Islamic and conventional banks in terms of risk degree, exposure to insolvency, and the argument ensuing concerning capital adequacy. However, the important point is the awareness and understanding the nature of risks, development of mechanisms to cover such risks, and the ability to compete in markets and meet the needs of customers.

Indeed, fintech is to take us beyond payments – faster and cheaper delivery of a far wider range of financial services. Increasing outreach and inclusion. Injection of new competition and transformation of the industry. We see this materialising. There are well over 12,000 start-ups disrupting the financial market globally with fintech investments reaching a record high of $ billion in 2019. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that as of April 2019, there were around 200 fintech start-ups in Malaysia in the areas of payments, blockchain, and lending. CPA Australia apprised that over 75 per cent of Malaysian businesses have embraced at least one fintech product or service over the past 12 months, according to a regional survey. While the disruption continues, traditional financial institutions have been responding. Insights from PW C indicate 77% of traditional financial institutions are increasing internal efforts to innovate, 56% have put disruption at the heart of their strategy, and 31% are already purchasing the services of fintech companies. Many are also partnering with fintech companies. For Bank Negara Malaysia, we have also embraced the fintech agenda, setting up our internal Fintech Working Group in 2016, launching our Fintech Sandbox not long after that and finally, organising our very own industry conference – the MyFintech Week in 2019. To be future ready, we are highly committed to support the digital transformation of the financial sector. Earlier this year, we issued the e-KYC policy document to enable digital on-boarding of customers to occur anytime and anywhere.
We want to create a Smart Financial Centre: because we want to increase efficiency – to do things cheaper, better, faster; because we want to manage our risks better – to keep our system safe and sound; because we want to create new opportunities – to generate growth and good jobs; and most of all, because we want to improve people’s lives – to provide them better services, to help them realise their goals. Innovative finance must be purposeful finance. Thank you and I wish you all the best. 9/9  BIS central bankers' speeches

Alongside the current unusually high degree of labor market slack, we have a situation in which core inflation levels are low by historical standards. Continuing the comparison with the recession of 1981-82, it is worth noting that the core inflation rate today is almost 5 percentage points lower than it was toward the end of that episode. In addition, historical experience shows that the slack generated during a recession typically pushes core inflation lower in the early stages of recovery. So far, this cycle looks little different. As the degree of slack in the economy has climbed over the past year, measures of core inflation, particularly of core services inflation, have moderated. The tendency for service price movements to be persistent, coupled with the current unusually large amount of slack in the economy, suggests that the core inflation rate is more likely to fall than it is to rise over the next 12 to 18 months. BIS Review 122/2009  3  In summary, I believe the current balance of risks around the inflation outlook lie to the downside due to the very low level of resource utilization and the fact that long-run inflation expectations remain stable. This balance of risks is problematic because the current level of inflation is already so low – the core PCE (personal consumption expenditures) deflator has increased only 1.3 percent over the past 12 months. Thus, we would not need much of a decline in inflation to run the risk of an outright deflation.
Financial and monetary conditions Our monetary policy tightening continues to be reflected in risk-free interest rates and broader financing conditions. Funding conditions are tighter for banks and credit is becoming more expensive for firms and households. In April lending rates reached their highest level in more than a decade, standing at 4.4 per cent for business loans and 3.4 per cent for mortgages. These higher borrowing rates, together with tighter credit supply conditions and lower loan demand, have further weakened credit dynamics. The annual growth of loans to firms declined again in April, to 4.6 per cent. The month-on-month changes have been negative on average since November. Loans to households grew at an annual rate of 2.5 per cent in April and increased only marginally month on month. Weak bank lending and the reduction in the Eurosystem balance sheet led to a continued decline in annual broad money growth to 1.9 per cent in April. Month-on-month changes in broad money have been negative since December. In line with our monetary policy strategy, the Governing Council thoroughly assessed the links between monetary policy and financial stability. The financial stability outlook has remained challenging since our last review in December 2022. Tighter financing conditions are raising banks' funding costs and the credit risk of outstanding loans. Together with the recent tensions in the US banking system, these factors could give rise to systemic stress and depress economic growth in the short term.

Their validity in ensuring the convergence of transition economies is an issue that is hotly contested by several economists (see Buiter et al., 2002). 3  See Buiter and Grafe (2002) and Begg et al. (2002). 2  BIS Review 1/2007  (IV)  The Bank of Albania approach to EU accession  The monetary policy of the Bank of Albania focuses on maintaining price stability through the control of monetary aggregates which are used as intermediate target. Indirect instruments are used to transmit interest rate and liquidity signals to the market. Repo rate is the leading indicator for short term interest rates while repo and reverse-repo operations are used to manage liquidity. Over the last five years the Bank of Albania stability oriented monetary policy has generated low and stable inflation; it has also ensured that medium and long run inflation expectations have been well contained. The economic growth has been robust at around 5-6 percent of GDP, while enjoying a high degree of financial stability. (In other words, it seems like we are already close to the ERM II standards.) Such results reflect the opinion that economic convergence should not be held back by the political one. Political processes dictate that ERM II and EMU should be preceded by entry into the EU. The Bank of Albania has a clear view of the EU accession process. The design of the current and future monetary policy strategies is in line with the ultimate objective of EU accession.
In practice, these financing concepts can cover several aspects. Banks invest in a business venture with an entrepreneur and receive profit/loss sharing (e.g. in a corporate banking transaction). Depositors invest in a Bank and earn profit/loss sharing (e.g. when consumers want to open a mudharabah account). Banks invest in a business venture with an Entrepreneur and then finance the product of the business venture to consumers (e.g. Bank enters into partnership with Entrepreneur to build houses and sells the house to consumer thru a financing package). The structure seem quite established and generally accepted. Yet since 2006, despite equity-based transaction has become more popular, it only constituted only 2% of total financing. BIS Review 49/2010  3  In fact, in our effort to motivate the industry to engage in more equity-based financing, a specific guideline dealing with mudharabah and musyarakah was issued on 21 September 2007. From our observation, we need a lot of room for improvement in this particular area. Sales based contract remains significant portion of financing – around 50%, 30% being Ijarah. A large proportion of Islamic finance domestically is therefore debt or asset based financing. Why the industry did not focus more on equity based financing? Should Islamic banks which are relatively small in size take this major shift in direction? A new direction not just for Islamic banks, but a new direction in the way Islamic finance should develop forward. Is there an impediment? If so – what is the impediment and is it something that we can solve?

There is a clear sequencing of monetary policy actions that has been set and is being followed by the Governing Council. We closely monitor all incoming data and adjustment of the ECB monetary policy instruments will be done gradually and flexibly to target any demand side or second-round inflationary effects or de-anchoring of inflation expectations. The volatility and high uncertainty force a need for optionality in the conduct of monetary policy to ensure price stability over the medium term. It is both interesting and important here to briefly explain the difference in the monetary policy actions employed so far by the ECB and the Federal Reserve in response to the inflationary shocks. The policy actions of the ECB and the Federal Reserve, diverge since they face very different economic environments and data. In the U.S., where the Federal Reserve has already raised rates and delivered today the biggest rate hike since 2000, the inflationary pressure has been made more acute by a tight labour market. In the euro area the labour market is not tight. Also, domestic demand in the euro area is back to pre-Covid levels. In the U.S., it is higher. Therefore, the US is facing demand-side inflationary pressure that monetary policy can deal with. In Cyprus, the rise in oil prices has a direct impact on the households' cost of living and firms' production costs while the sanctions imposed on Russia mainly affect the tourism and professional services sectors of the country and are expected to weigh on economic activity.
Usually, small and simple loans are provided at branch office level, but larger and complicated loans are provided at successively higher levels. Banks have also adopted internal risk evaluation systems in which the individual loans are graded according to their risk. Loan documentation is improved to facilitate monitoring of the loan but also to ensure that the bank can collect on the loan in the event of a judicial process. In Sweden, concentration of credit risk was a major problem during the crises. Some two thirds of the losses were linked to the sharp price declines in real estate. A loan and its collateral must be evaluated separately, something that we had forgotten during the many years of regulation. If the expected returns from the investment made by the loan are uncertain or not adequate the loan should in most cases not be given, irrespective of the collateral. The reason is that the collateral, in a crisis situation, often proves to be worth far less than expected. This is particularly true when it is tied to the borrower - such as when a company has put up its own building as collateral. The linkage between credit risk and foreign exchange risk was large during the Swedish banking crises. This was seen also in the Asian crises in 1998. For example: Swedish borrowers wanted loans in yen and German marks because the interest rates in these currencies were low.

In this capacity, the central bank is mainly interested in systemic risks, not in the potential problems of individual banks unless these are large enough to affect the whole system. The macro prudential analysis aims at identifying risks which are BIS Review 66/2000  6  common to a number of banks and other financial institutions or markets, including payment systems. Such risks often stem from the development of the macro economy. Volatile inflation developments or exchange rate fluctuations could lead to problems for a number of banks. Asset price “bubbles”, excessive loan concentrations or excessive leverage ratios for borrowers might do the same. It is natural for the central bank to closely monitor such developments and take prompt action if it finds that financial stability is endangered. In some cases it may not have the powers to take direct action itself, but it may inform other parties, such as the political authorities or the supervisors, urging them to apply necessary measures. I would like to emphasise that macro prudential analysis does not mean that the central bank is duplicating the work of the supervisory authority. We do not examine and audit the individual financial institutions, this is clearly the task of the supervisors. Most of our information is gathered from other sources, including from the supervisory authority itself. An increasing number of central banks, eg those in England, Canada and Sweden have established a structured procedure to macro prudential analyses.
In comparative context with the EU members, we are lagging behind given that 91% of credit transfers were electronically initiated in the old EU members and 86% in the new EU member countries in 2016. Regarding digital channels used for ordering goods and services, internet shoppers in Macedonia increased by 5 p.p. during the last five years and reached 15% of the population that used internet in 2017. This is quite below the 57% of internet shoppers in the EU in 2017, according to the Eurostat. Internet shopping is becoming popular among all age groups, but the young internet users have the highest share of online shoppers among internet users. In addition, the development of FinTech companies is expected in the coming period through further liberalization of payment transactions and the further trend of opening of the information systems of the banks towards this type of companies. 1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  The absence of liberalization in payments industry can be treated as a factor that in a sense constrained digitalization in Macedonia in the past. This is expected to change with the new Law on payment services and systems which isunder procedure implementing PSD2, PAD, E-money 2, Settlement Finality Directive, IFR provisions and some provisions of Regulation on credit transfers and direct debit. The new law is expected to provide more stimulating environment for financial innovations allowing for new entrants to the market with innovative payments solutions, while establishing standards that will enhance the security and consumer protection.

This period coincided with the consequences caused by the pandemic. Second, the Bank of Albania has initiated and implemented a plan of measures to increase the use of the national currency, in the financial system. This plan of measures aims at strengthening the financial stability of the banking sector and economy and at the better monetary policy pass through. It has induced positive effects in terms of reducing the share of loans in foreign currency around the level of 50% and increasing the interest for holding savings in our national currency. Third, the Bank of Albania has successfully managed the consolidation process of the banking sector. This process, consisting in a huge investment of time and energy, has aimed at not simply reducing the number of commercial banks (from 16 to 12), but – above all – at the introduction of new and motivated actors in the domestic market and increase of competition in this market. Albania has benefited a more competitive, efficient and safer banking sector. Last, the Bank of Albania has worked for the adoption of the best practices in the banking regulation and supervision field, aiming at the convergence with the euro area standards and focusing on the analyses and address of large risks. In reflection of this work, the Bank of Albania is already a member of the supervisory colleges of central banks. We have also established and approved a complete and functional framework on resolution of banks, thus being the first amid regional countries. These efforts have given their fruits.
Jean-Pierre Danthine: A macroprudential progress report Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Danthine, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Society for Financial Econometrics (SoFiE), Lugano, 11 October 2013. *  *  *  I would like to thank Till Ebner, Fabian Gunzinger and Patrick Saner for their very valuable support in drafting this speech. Introduction Five years ago, the failure of Lehman Brothers sent shockwaves through the global financial system. The failure of a relatively small but highly interconnected institution pushed the entire financial system and, eventually, the global economy to the brink of collapse. This painfully highlighted the fact that policymakers had underestimated systemic risk. Five years later, thanks to substantial efforts, we have a better – but admittedly still incomplete – understanding of what systemic risk is and what we should do about it. In general terms, systemic risk arises because an optimising financial institution does not fully account for the cost that its behaviour imposes on other financial institutions. Thus, in essence, the origin of systemic risk is a negative externality imposed by individual financial firms on the system. For analytical and regulatory purposes, it is useful to differentiate between structural and cyclical systemic risk. Structural systemic risk stems from institutions that are so large or so interconnected that their failure would threaten the stability of the entire system. These are the institutions that are “too big to fail” (TBTF) or “too interconnected to fail”.

A stable financial system cannot be based on questionable and opaque risk assessments. To regain confidence in these calculations, banks should make sure that their RWA calculations are transparent and traceable. In particular, they have to ensure that changes in RWAs over time, and differences in published RWAs between institutions, can be explained and economically accounted for. Third, the ongoing work on recovery and resolution plans should be pursued with total determination. If required for the guaranteed maintenance of systemically important functions, changes in the current organisational structure should be explored and initiated without delay. Fourth, on the regulatory side, further progress in defining the key elements of a viable resolution and recovery strategy for globally active banks is needed. In the absence of global bank insolvency legislation, this necessitates close coordination among regulators across borders. Specifically, further steps are necessary to guarantee that resolution measures – such as a bail-in – ordered by the home regulator are mutually recognised by foreign authorities. In this regard, it is encouraging that the resolution and recovery plans for our big banks are being developed in close collaboration with the foreign regulatory authorities concerned. Let me finish with some words regarding the cyclical risks. Mortgage volumes and real estate prices continue to grow at rates significantly above those justified by fundamental factors such as income and population growth. This means that the imbalances, which are already large, are increasing further.