samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
At the end of 2008, this led to a first significant appreciation in the Swiss franc. The SNB took a series of measures to increase liquidity in the banking system and prevent a further strengthening of the Swiss franc against the euro, including, from spring 2009, interventions in the foreign exchange market. A certain stabilisation of the Swiss franc exchange rate took place in 2009. Slide 1 shows that, at the time, the exchange rate was about CHF 1.50 against the euro. As you know, this situation did not last. In spring 2010, tensions on the financial markets increased rapidly again as a result of the debt crisis in Greece, and this was followed by another global flight into safe investments. In this environment, the Swiss franc came under substantial upward pressure against all major currencies, even reaching parity against the euro for a brief period  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  in summer 2011. In this extreme situation, the SNB introduced the minimum exchange rate of CHF 1.20 against the euro at the beginning of September 2011, enforcing it consistently by means of foreign currency purchases. For more than three years, the minimum exchange rate proved its value as an exceptional and temporary instrument to counter a broad-based and extreme Swiss franc strength. It stabilised the situation and gave the Swiss economy time to adjust. However, in 2014, exchange rate conditions began to shift once again. Expectations that the US central bank would soon lift interest rates had been increasing since mid-2014.

Mobile banking will lead to increased outreach, increased efficiency and productivity as well as increased returns for businesses. Let me once again assure you, Mr. Chairman that, the Bank of Zambia is committed to providing an enabling environment through appropriate regulation for banks and financial businesses that wish to promote financial inclusion. We appreciate the Mobile Banking initiative by Celpay Zambia Limited and look forward to greater investment in financial inclusion in our beloved country. I thank you. BIS Review 111/2009  3
Second, the transitional costs of moving to higher capital requirements were found to be a little higher than the long-run costs. But that result depends on the starting position. Outside of financial booms, undercapitalised banking systems do not provide the credit needed for economic growth, regardless of capital requirements. 27  Menon (2013). 28  See Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2010a). 29  See Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2010b). Furthermore, reforms to OTC derivative markets were found to have supplemented that by a further 0.1% of GDP. By making the system simpler, these reduce the probability of crises. See Macroeconomic Assessment Group on Derivatives (2013). BIS central bankers’ speeches  13  Where banking systems have raised capital and restored trust in their creditworthiness, access to credit has returned. This central lesson from the US and the UK recoveries could not be clearer. The evidence internationally suggests much the same. With the possible exception of parts of the euro area, lending spreads have fallen and credit volumes have increased at the same time as capital has gone up. In other words, if anything, regulators may have significantly overestimated the transitional costs, or even possibly got the sign wrong. Third, although tighter regulatory requirements have caused bank balance sheets to shrink, that does not translate fully into reduced access to credit for real economy borrowers. As I said, some of the reduction in bank-based intermediation has been substituted with marketbased finance for the real economy.

16  14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 -2 -4  50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 00 05 10 15  Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics  In November 1974, when the rate of inflation according to the consumer price index amounted to more than 12 per cent in the United States, Milton Friedman wrote the following in Newsweek: 5 That monetary expansion on the average could be expected to produce an inflation of something like 6 per cent a year, not of 12 per cent. The difference is attributable to nonmonetary factors, mostly transitory, and so constitutes something of a bubble on the underlying inflation trend. In the past, when such bubbles have broken, the rate of inflation has declined precipitously. For example, in the Korean War bubble, the rate of inflation of consumer prices fell from 10 per cent to 2 per cent in nine months. One now began to use different filtered measures in the econometric research literature. Gordon (1975b) calculates an equation where the aggregate selling prices exclude energy and food prices. He motivated his choice by saying that variations in food and energy prices, particularly in the beginning of the 1970s, were due to other factors than domestic supply and demand. 6 7  5 See Newsweek, 4 November 1974, p. 84. 6 See Gordon (1975b), s 622 “But the magnitude and timing of the 1973-74 explosion in energy prices can only be regarded as noneconomic and exogenous”.
Thus not only does the price of gilts rise as a consequence of the Asset Purchase Facility’s initial purchases, but also the prices of a whole spectrum of other assets. That in turn lowers the cost of non-bank finance and encourages increased corporate issuance. Also the rise in asset prices increases wealth and improves balance sheets. In this way, Quantitative Easing helps to work around the blockage created by a banking system that is still undergoing a process of balance sheet repair. That is exactly what we have seen since the Monetary Policy Committee started its asset purchase program. Gilt yields fell sharply, though they have subsequently risen and fallen again (Chart 2). But gilt yields can move for a variety of reasons, including changing expectations of future interest rates. If we control for that by comparing gilt yields with a measure of market expectations of the future level of Bank Rate (Overnight Indexed Swap rates for an equivalent maturity), we find that this spread has fallen by around ¾ percentage point (Chart 3). Moreover, no such movement is observed in either the United States or euro  1  That is in contrast to the related policy conducted by the Bank of Japan in the early part of this decade, which was instead directed at purchases of Japanese government debt held by the banking sector. 2  BIS Review 126/2009  area, which strongly suggests that the movement may be related to our gilt purchases 2 .

Remittances have significant potential to deliver such opportunities to millions of migrants in their home countries. Let this Forum serve as a call to action, based on an honest search for better understanding and a genuine commitment to pursue individual and collective solutions. With much at stake, we cannot afford not to. Thank you. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
The Governing Council of the ECB has decided to support, in principle, the activities pertaining to the introduction of a STEP label, which would acknowledge adoption of the standards, for the first two years after its launch. It has also decided to produce and publish STEP yield indices as well as statistics on volumes on an ongoing basis. The ECB would like to strongly encourage similar initiatives to promote financial integration in Europe. Continuing my assessment of the wholesale markets, I will briefly discuss the equity market. Recent empirical evidence shows that the degree of integration has increased here. For example, the so-called “home bias” in the equity holdings of investment and pension funds has decreased substantially over the time. Overall, however, this market segment is still one of the least integrated. As a final comment on the wholesale markets, I would like to say a few words on the development of new credit markets. Sometimes, these markets are set up in a pan-European context right from the start – we might say they are “born integrated”. One example of this is the European market for synthetic collateralised debt obligations. This development is encouraging. However, the existence of cross-border activity, with its impact on prices and volumes, does not always signal the absence of hurdles and the achievement of full integration. Factors of segmentation may still exist, but can be overcome by innovative instruments.

Thank you very much for your attention. BIS Review 18/2005  5
2  Between the three months Dec 2009 to Feb 2010 and the period June to August 2010, total employment increased by 315,000 according to the Labour Force Survey. 2  BIS Review 134/2010  optimistic about their future business prospects. The recent growth of employment has been driven by the private sector and that should also give us encouragement that the private sector can generate job growth that will more than offset the public employment cuts that may be in prospect following the spending review. I will come back to this point later. A second positive feature of the early stages of this recovery is that we have seen some evidence of rebalancing in the UK economy. Manufacturing output is growing much more strongly than the services sector, reversing the pattern of services-led growth that prevailed in the decade before the financial crisis. Over the last year, we have seen the strongest rate of growth of manufacturing output that the UK has experienced in over 15 years – as Chart 3 shows. According to the latest data, manufacturing production is 5% up on a year ago compared with growth of just 1.5% in the services sector over the same period. 3 While some of this rebound in the manufacturing sector may reflect temporary factors – such as the turnaround in the global stock cycle – it also shows that British industry is able to take advantage of the recovery in the global economy with the additional support of a competitive exchange rate.

The ability of British manufacturing industry to provide strong impetus to private sector growth will be an important offset to the drag to domestic demand from the rebalancing of public finances over the next few years. There is also evidence that strong growth in the global economy is benefiting parts of the services sector. Earlier this week, the airport operator BAA reported a 7.6% annual rise in traffic volumes at Heathrow Airport in September – driven by strong business travel growth to Asia and other emerging markets. From the position a year ago – when demand had fallen sharply at home and abroad in the wake of the financial crisis – this turnaround is impressive. So my verdict on the recovery would be “so far, so good”. But we have to recognise that we are still at an early phase of the upswing. It is not surprising, therefore, that growth is uneven across sectors and from quarter to quarter, and that confidence is still somewhat fragile. The state of confidence is not helped by the negative tone of much of the economic commentary at present – which seems to reflect a high degree of nervousness about the  3  Data is latest available: for manufacturing it relates to the three months to August and for services to the three months to July. BIS Review 134/2010  3  progress of the recovery. But this raises the obvious question: if things are so good, why do they feel so bad – to some people at least?
The global fall in interest rates reflects the emergence of a considerable savings glut, especially after the countries in Asia joined the world market in earnest after 2000. The decline in interest rates is thus an international phenomenon, driven by falling inflation, lower growth and increased global saving. Interest rates in Norway cannot diverge too far from global rates. An excessively strong krone would then lead to a fall in activity and deflation. The main task of monetary policy is to maintain the value of money by keeping inflation low and 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  stable. Inflation targeting is forward-looking and flexible so that it can contribute to high and stable output and employment and to counteracting the build-up of financial imbalances. Monetary policy cannot assume primary responsibility for financial stability. But as we are now in the process of raising the policy rate somewhat, this could also help curb debt growth. Will debt be reduced? It is easy to imagine that house prices will just continue to rise – as they have done for more than 25 years. Rising income and government wealth have gone hand in hand with rising house prices and higher household debt. But Norway’s experience from the years after oil was discovered, and in particular from the years following the banking crisis at the beginning of the 1990s, cannot serve as reliable guidance for what we can expect in the future.

We borrow today, because we are confident that the income will come tomorrow. How can debt be reduced? While the financial crisis in 2008 brought debt growth to a sudden halt in some countries, debt growth continues to outpace income growth for Norwegian households. This can hardly go on forever. If debt needs to be reduced, the question is how? Sovereign borrowers can levy taxes and thereby have a reliable source of revenue. Even so, being the creditor of a sovereign can be risky. In 1918, after the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks repudiated all debt issued by the previous regime. French investors, among them many small savers, held nearly half of the Russian national debt at the beginning of the First World War. They were among the first big losers of the Russian Revolution.2 In the inter-war period, these losses had consequences for French foreign policy. France became a fierce opponent of the Soviet regime. The losses on Tsarist bonds may have also contributed to France’s unwillingness to restructure German debt after the war. Germany’s debt burden contributed to the hyperinflation of the 1920s and the fall of the Weimar Republic. Now, on the evening of 9 April, 79 years after the German invasion of Norway, we can conclude that debt m have fateful consequences. After Boris Yeltsin raised the Russian flag in 1991, the French creditors returned. Old bond certificates were retrieved from drawers. A final settlement was agreed in 1996.
They do not reflect the underlying investment approach of the MAS which is conservative and emphasises steady, long-term returns. The profit outturn for the last FY reflects positive currency translation effects and higher investment gains. MAS’ underlying foreign investment gains remain fairly stable at $ billion on average. In FY2016/17, MAS made a gain of $ billion from its investment of the official foreign reserves. 5 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  Currency translation effects, reflecting the depreciation of the Singapore Dollar against some major currencies, amounted to $ billion. Foreign investment gains therefore amounted to $ billion, compared to $ billion the previous FY. The increase was due to higher interest and dividend income, higher realised capital gains and lower valuation provisions made as global markets rose over the period. In fact, taking the two FYs together, the foreign investment gain averaged $ billion, not much higher than the average of $ billion recorded in previous years. A CLEAN AND TRUSTED FINANCIAL CENTRE Last year, I spoke about how the growth of Singapore’s financial centre has been underpinned by its reputation as a clean and trusted jurisdiction. Upholding high standards of integrity in the financial industry is an absolute priority for MAS. That is why we took very seriously the lapses in anti-money laundering controls among some of our financial institutions with respect to suspicious 1MDB-related transactions.

Inadequate financial supervision and regulation, problems with macroeconomic management, and a general lack of transparency certainly contributed to the problems. Ladies and Gentlemen, even with the best economic management, small open economies remain vulnerable. They are like small rowboats on a wild and open sea. Although we may not be able to predict it, the chances of eventually being broadsided by a large wave are significant no matter how well the boat is steered. Though, to be sure, bad steering probably increases the chances of a disaster, and a leaky boat makes it inevitable, even on a relatively calm day. Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s turn to the role of monetary policy and central banks Price stability The interaction between financial markets, economic growth and monetary policy is by no means a new issue for central bankers. However, financial market developments have brought the question to the forefront of the policy debate. The continued integration and deepening of financial markets is a significant issue for policy-makers, and particularly for central bankers, since smoothly functioning and efficient financial markets are crucial in ensuring a smooth transmission of monetary impulses. The best contribution that monetary policy can make to the smooth functioning and integration of financial markets and to economic growth is to maintain steady medium-term price stability. Such a policy will be beneficial, as it will minimise the adverse effects of inflation and high inflation uncertainty. As we all know, price stability is beneficial in numerous ways.
Such an option would not only be extremely costly, but also strike a serious blow at the very heart of European integration – the single market. Restrictions on operating abroad through branches has been proposed as a possible way forward, since this would then make all foreign bank affiliates subject to local supervision. 20 It should be noted however that the distinction between branches and subsidiaries is becoming increasingly blurred. To be as efficient as possible, banks often organize themselves along business lines rather than along legal and national lines. As a result, foreign subsidiaries have become less self-contained. This means that we can no longer take for granted that a subsidiary will be able to continue its business much longer than a branch, if the parent bank defaults. Therefore, even if all foreign affiliates were operated as subsidiaries, the national authorities of the home and host countries would still have to be prepared to deal with a crisis in a cross-border setting. Consequently, finding ways to deal with banking regulation and supervision at the EU level is the only sensible long-term solution. However it is not a simple task. It would involve a supervisory regime that can coordinate national supervision, cross-border crisis management and resolution arrangements that address any conflicts of interest. This will require governments to give up some of their sovereignty – and that is a painful process.

On the contrary, the establishment of the NordicBaltic Cross-Border Stability Group has been an ongoing process for quite some time now. It started already in 2007 when we carried out a Nordic-Baltic crisis management exercise. By trying to manage an imaginary crisis using actual banks and applying the institutional and regulatory structures of the different countries, we learnt from one another and realised the importance of working together. Cooperation does not come by itself. It requires initiatives and continuous backing. And it takes time. Still, as far as I can see it is currently the only viable way forward in trying to deal with problems arising from cross-border banking in a way that does not lead to a backlash in European financial integration. What I have said today is fairly uncontroversial both in terms of the analysis of the challenges arising from cross-border banking and the need for joint action. However, despite the fact  22  BIS Review 82/2010  that opting for national solutions has proved to be a costly strategy in this crisis, some countries still seem to prefer going along this path. I think that is a mistake. I think that at the end of that path awaits financial disintegration with strongly negative consequences for future growth prospects. Concluding remarks Let me briefly summarize my main points. The structure of the financial services industry has gone through major changes over the past decades.
And therefore, among the broad set of UK economic indicators market participants could follow, there is no single ‘smoking gun’ that could be identified as the key indicator or driver of inflation persistence and thus monetary policy decisions. What I have attempted to do this evening is give some insight into how I think about the underlying structural forces driving the persistence of inflation. In particular – and reflecting the central conjunctural issues – I have focused on whether, and, if so, how, the initial inflationary impulse stemming from higher European wholesale natural gas prices will propagate through the UK price process. What this exercise suggests to me is that the distinctive context that prevails in the UK – of higher natural gas prices with a tight labour market, adverse labour supply developments and goods market bottlenecks – creates the potential for inflation to prove more persistent. It is therefore in this nexus that I focus in coming to my own assessment of the risks surrounding inflation persistence, which – consistent with the MPC’s collective communication – will strongly influence my monetary policy position in the coming months. The views expressed in this speech are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee. I would particularly like to thank Saba Alam, Doug Rendle, Philip Schnattinger and Brad Speigner for helpful discussions in the preparation of this speech.

In this regard, the Bank of Zambia and the financial service providers under its regulation and supervision are pleased to be part of the celebrations for International Women’s Day 2008 Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, our country has made great economic strides in the past few years. We have had positive economic growth averaging 5% in the last five years. The macroeconomic environment has stabilised with the achievement of single digit inflation as well as reduced interest rates. In addition we have seen increased investments in the mining and other productive sectors. This improved environment presents great opportunities  BIS Review 29/2008  1  for our country for both men and women. As you all know, women have from time immemorial taken centre stage in the running of small and medium enterprises ranging from agriculture, mining, and tourism, to manufacturing as well as cross border trading. All these economic activities need financing in order to grow and contribute to our country’s Gross Domestic Product. Ladies and Gentlemen, this brings me to the theme of International Women’s day for this year and that is “Financing for Gender Equality”. At the international level, commitments have been made on financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women by governments all over the world. A large number of governments have taken initiatives to integrate gender perspectives into their national budgets in order to reflect the differentiated needs of women and men. At a national level, Zambia is committed to financing for gender equality.