samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  To further explore and leverage or these opportunities, plans are currently underway to organise an inaugural Islamic Finance Symposium on Innovation that will provide a platform for the academia and industry to come together to develop and test breakthrough ideas and innovative solutions in Islamic finance. On its part, Bank Negara Malaysia has been actively engaging with fintech firms to better understand their activities and provide guidance on the regulations that may apply to them. The adoption of fintech is clearly not without risks, particularly in the wake of rising cybersecurity threats that could compromise safeguards that protect financial assets and customer data. The Bank has commenced a review of the changes and additional guidance needed to ensure that the regulatory framework remains appropriate to manage the risks, while encouraging productive innovation that will drive costs down and improve the quality of service to consumers. We are looking at this from several perspectives: first, the impact of fintech strategies on the management of risks by financial institutions; second, the potential for fintech start-ups to introduce new risks to the broader financial system as a result of regulatory arbitrage; and third, the impact to consumers. We will be providing more information to the market on our approach to the regulation of fintech developments as our review progresses. In the meantime, our engagements with individual firms will continue, supported by dedicated resources within the Bank to lead the review.

The heads of Joint Supervisory Teams will come from a country other than that in which the institution it is supervising is established. “In concrete terms: the head supervisor for Deutsche Bank will be a French lady; BNP Paribas will be supervised by an Italian man.” *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, In precisely two months’ time, we will usher in a new era in the euro area. With the establishment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) on 4 November 2014, the European Central Bank (ECB) will assume key competencies in the field of banking supervision. However, unlike the introduction of the euro banknotes and coins in 2002, this step towards further integration will not entail a major symbolic change that is tangible for all citizens. Nevertheless, the start of the SSM means progress, not only in European integration, but also in day-to-day supervisory work. The ECB – one of the world’s largest supervisors The ECB will take on the direct supervision of around 120 credit institutions and more than 80% of the aggregated balance sheet for the euro area banking sector. In absolute figures, this means a total of more than € trillion as per 30 June 2014. In addition, the ECB will be indirectly supervising the less significant institutions, of which there are just over 3,500. Here, we will shape supervision by setting binding supervisory standards. This will make the ECB one of the world’s largest supervisors.
As the financial stability authority we are also responsible for monitoring stability at the level of the sector as a whole. While we have multiple policy hats the common denominator in this space is ensuring that the sector has adequate operational resilience – that is that firms can continue to provide critical services that are important for their own integrity and the functioning of the sector. If a firm’s operations are interrupted, we want to be sure that they can be recovered quickly and reliably especially where they are systemically important. Three observations at this point: a)  First to stress our accent on financial stability. Our efforts target first those firms where operational failures may result in disruption to the provision of vital financial services to the real economy or in dislocation to the rest of the sector. That does not mean the failures in customer facing applications do not matter. It is just that, where no immediate systemic dislocation results from such an outage, any consumer detriment will be a concern for our colleagues at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) more than it is for us. b)  Second, operational resilience is different from operational risk. In operational resilience we are describing a policy outcome we want to deliver in terms of the system functioning. This may be a by-product of effective operational risk management.

For instance, as late as last summer it became possible in Germany to shop after 6 p.m. on weekdays and on Saturday afternoons. However, it is still almost impossible to find a shopping centre in Berlin or Frankfurt that is open on Sundays, a day that ought to be very suitable for retail trade since customers are usually not at work then. So a continued modernisation of working-hour laws could contribute to further improving efficiency in the German economy. Another area is the costs associated with downsizing. European firms are in many cases obliged to pay for laid-off employees a long time after their employment has finished. This may make the labour market less efficient in downturns, as firms often try to retain existing staff instead of implementing costly cutbacks. The situation can become particularly serious if the downturn turns out be longer or deeper than firms initially fear, since cutbacks during the economic downturn risk aggravating the decline. In this respect, the euro area and Sweden are at a disadvantage compared with the UK and the US, where the labour market responds much quicker to changes in economic conditions. Labour market legislation can therefore also be significant for the economic cycle. Firms that are forced to retain a larger workforce than they have use for during a downturn will not be as financially well prepared to meet a future upswing. We can see signs today of how this is having an adverse effect on the European economic recovery.
This is being reinforced by arrangements for surveillance for assessments of risks to the region and regional frameworks for crisis management and resolution, including arrangements for mutual assistance. Equally important in this process is the cooperation and collaboration among regulatory authorities for sustaining regional financial stability. Much of this work has focused on putting in place strong and effective institutional arrangements to preserve regional financial stability. In the decade following the Asian Financial Crisis, most of Asia has accelerated the pace of financial sector development and reforms. Several of the Asian economies have made significant strides in improving the soundness and efficiency of financial institutions and in developing domestic financial markets. At the regional level, key initiatives have included the development of the regional bond markets through the creation of various Asian Bond Funds and the ASEAN+3 Bond Market Initiatives, the regional arrangements for crisis management that includes liquidity support, and the collaborative efforts advanced under EMEAP to facilitate liquidity management for financial institutions operating in the region through CrossBorder Collateral Arrangements. Currently, while intra-regional cross-border portfolio investments within Asia is relatively small, it has already increased to 28 percent of total assets holdings in 2011 compared with 21 percent in 2001. Another important development that has contributed to greater regional financial integration is the increasing role of Islamic finance in the international financial system. In its early stages of development, Islamic finance was highly domestic-centric in its orientation.

Events of recent years will be seen by financial historians as among the most significant in the past millennium. At the worst point of the crisis, savers and borrowers around the world came close to losing confidence in financial institutions. The resulting panic has had deep and long-lasting consequences for global activity. The statistics are striking. Between July 2007 and March 2009, the equity prices of global banks fell by 75%. That is a loss of market capitalisation of around $ trillion. In the UK, banks’ equity prices fell by over 80%. Taken alongside falls in other asset prices, the loss of global wealth peaked at over $ trillion, or almost 45% of global GDP. At that point, asset price falls in the UK and US were as large as during the Great Depression (Chart 1). Knock-on effects to the real economy were no less dramatic. Peak to trough, output in OECD economies has fallen by around 4%. In the UK, output is likely to have fallen by around 6%, peak to trough. The present value of those losses, carried forward across generations, would be a significant multiple of those falls. Today’s Great Recession is the most significant economic event since the Great Depression. That this Great Recession did not become a second Great Depression is in large part the result of policy actions. These have been unprecedented in speed and scale. Monetary policy around the world has been loosened dramatically.
Spotlight: Developing a Financial System for the Future Speech by Dr. Veerathai Santiprabhob Governor of the Bank of Thailand Bloomberg ASEAN Business Summit July 12, 2018, Siam Kempinski Hotel, Bangkok Thailand Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, A very good morning to you all. It is my pleasure to be here today and take part in this event. First of all, I would like to thank Bloomberg for organizing this exciting conference and for inviting me to share with you my thoughts on “Developing a Financial System for the Future.” It is a timely and important topic as I am sure that most of us have been pondering how, in this age of disruptions, the financial system will develop to support economic growth while at the same time preserve financial stability. Ladies and gentlemen, In this VUCA world of high volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, Thailand’s economy, like other emerging economies, is facing new challenges. Monetary policy normalization in advanced economies, record-high debt levels in many parts of the world, stretched global asset valuation, and risks of an all-out trade war are posing immediate challenges to the stability of our financial systems. At the same time, technology disruption, aging society, and growing income inequality are also presenting structural challenges to many emerging economies, including Thailand.

The basic banking account has no minimum balance requirement and offers free ATMs and debit cards to those who qualify. The scheme is expected to roll out by October this year. The Bank of Thailand is also undergoing regulatory reform to review outdated rules and regulations, to facilitate ease of doing business and ensure that our regulations do not impede competition and innovation and contribute to high costs of financial services. We started with foreign exchange regulations last year and are now reviewing banking regulations to improve digital banking environment and SME financing. In addition, the current backdrop of high household debt in Thailand and the need to improve individual’s financial safety net necessitate an overall improvement in financial literacy as well as financial planning skill. We have also tightened our market conduct regulations to ensure that misselling is minimized and financial institutions provide fair and transparent products and services. Given the growing importance of digital technology for financial services, we must also make sure that those with lower skills can reap the benefits that technology brings, to avoid digital divide. Last but not least, creating a financial ecosystem that values sustainability is critical to ensure that the Thai financial system of the future can continue to develop in such a way that would benefit all segments of the society and create minimal negative externalities. Later this month, the Bank of Thailand will host the first Bangkok Sustainable Banking Forum.
Jean-Pierre Roth: Review of the Swiss economy Introductory remarks by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the end-of-year media news conference, Zurich, 13 December 2002. *  *  *  The National Bank has decided to leave the target range for the three-month Libor rate unchanged at 0.25%–1.25%. For the time being, the three-month Libor is to be kept in the middle of the target range. Owing to the low level of inflation, we have been able to ease monetary policy substantially since March 2001, having since then lowered the target range for the three-month Libor by a total of 2.75 percentage points. We took decisive steps in response to declining economic growth and the upward trend of the Swiss franc. Interest rates were last lowered on 26 July of this year. The imponderables with respect to the development of the global economy remain considerable, and a sustained economic upswing in Switzerland is not likely until some time in the second half of 2003. We are therefore maintaining our expansionary monetary policy and shall keep the attractiveness of Swiss franc investments low. This does not jeopardise price stability. Assuming that the three-month Libor rate will remain stable at 0.75%, average annual inflation is expected to lie between 0.7% and 1.6% in the next three years. For 2003, we are anticipating economic growth of just over 1%, while zero growth is to be expected in the current year.

15.01.2019  The Spanish economy: transformation and challenges Spain Investors Day Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Let me thank the Governing Board of Spain Investors Day and its chairman, Benito Berceruelo, for their kind invitation to speak here today, together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the gala dinner of this 9th edition of Spain Investors Day. I am convinced that, as on previous occasions, the meeting will be a success. I will be focusing on the situation of the Spanish economy and on its banking sector. Along with a brief description of the current conjunctural setting, marked by a more complex and uncertain international economic environment, I would like to summarise some of the improvements observed in the Spanish economy in recent years, in the wake of the latest and acute crisis we experienced. I shall, moreover set out various challenges and vulnerabilities which, in my opinion, need to be properly and resolutely addressed. The aim thereby would be, first, to shore up the potential growth of our economy in the long term and, further, to adapt our financial system to the new regulatory demands and to the new competitive and technological setting. Let us take the economic situation first.
Speeches 07 Jun 2022  Opening remarks at the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks Cornerstone Members Memorandum of Understanding Signing Ceremony Eddie Yue, Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority Distinguished guests and friends, 1. Good afternoon. It is my great pleasure to join you to celebrate another milestone of the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks. Today we are going to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding that brings in five Cornerstone Members to the Alliance, welcome the on-boarding of four Global Partners and a Knowledge Partner, and publish the Alliance’s first thought leadership paper. 2. My special thanks to the IFC advisory team and the HKMA market outreach team for their hard work and close collaboration that brings out the biggest common denominator among various stakeholders. I would also like to personally thank the Cornerstone Members and Partners for their strong support and contribution throughout the engagement process. What we have achieved today is the product of collective efforts. 3. We at the HKMA feel privileged to have partnered with the IFC in launching the Asia chapter of the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks. This is an important joint commitment and undertaking to support financial institutions in Asia on their journey to become leading green institutions 4. Indeed Asia has the largest need for climate finance among the geographical regions. It is estimated that 66 trillion USD of climate investment is required for the region in the coming three decades.

This is equivalent to over half of the global investment needed to contain temperature rise by 1.5°C1. 5. The public sector alone cannot meet the enormous financing needs. Commercial banks can and do play a crucial part in fostering the green transition. They can do so by adopting clear strategies and targets to develop green finance products and services to support the transition of the real economy. 6. We fully recognise that commercial banks are at various stages of this green transformation, and there is much scope to create synergy among banks in the region. The Alliance serves as a platform to foster this much needed public-private sector partnership. The IFC offers a deep pool of knowledge and expertise in climate finance across the globe. The HKMA will leverage Hong Kong’s international financial centre status as a focal point to promote green banking in the region. 7. Since its launch, the Alliance has organised capacity building events on a wide array of green finance topics, including green bank transformation, green building, voluntary carbon markets, climate risk management and green capital markets. 8. Today the Alliance is taking another big step forward by enlarging our network of partners through a membership programme. 9. The programme aims to connect banks that are aware of the urgency in green finance and are committed to mainstream green banking to help tackle climate change.
This will be more in the nature of a gradual evolution than a “big bang”. There are really two main strands. The first will be a more systematic identification of risk, and covering a wider range of risks. The second will be the increased use of quantitative techniques, including modelling and stress-testing. Let me talk a little bit about each of these in turn. First is the more systematic identification of risk, covering a wider range of risks. This is something on which I would say that Hong Kong is already in many respects quite well advanced. For several years now the HKMA has adopted what we term a “risk-based supervisory approach”. This involves a number of steps. First, the inherent risks being run by an institution in each of its business lines are identified. Eight inherent risks are focused on - credit risk, market risk, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, legal risk, reputation risk and strategic risk. These risks are then classified as either “high”, “moderate” or “low”, taking into account the current position and likely future developments. The risk control practices to manage these inherent risks are then evaluated, and classified as “strong”, “acceptable” or “weak”. This evaluation takes account of such factors as management oversight, policies and procedures, risk measurement and internal controls. The final step is to combine the assessments so as to determine whether, for each business line, the risk controls are adequate given the level and direction of risk.

This is especially true for low value transactions and cross-border remittances, where fees can be as high as 13% of the value of funds transferred.4 These high costs impede not only remittances but also bilateral trade and investment. We therefore need to work on solutions that will promote competition and innovations, making these services more affordable. While a complete solution for cross-border transfers is yet to emerge, significant progress has been made with respect to payment solutions within each GMS country. In Vietnam, OnePay allows customers to make financial transactions on e-commerce websites, as well as deposit funds into their bank accounts without visiting a physical bank branch. Wing in Cambodia, BCEL in Laos and Wave Money in Myanmar all provide instant money payments and transfers through mobile phones to recipients who do not have bank accounts. In Thailand, PromptPay is a modern, faster payment system that provides free transfer services for transactions up to 5,000 baht (or about 150 US dollars), one of the cheapest rates in the world. PromptPay allows individuals and businesses to transfer money between banks and e-wallets using their mobile phone or citizen ID numbers.
Any action taken by a central bank today must be based largely on considerations about the rate of inflation one to two years down the road. So even though the underlying rate of inflation has been lower, central banks have to consider what is likely to happen to prices in the future. Long and variable lags made it difficult to know what the appropriate policy was at each moment for the purposes of fine tuning future economic activity. In addition, political pressures tended to emphasize the immediate or short-term benefits of stimulating the real economy at the expense of long-term increases in inflation from such policies (myopia). The combination of these lags and myopia imparted an inflationary bias to policy with the result that in the 1  BIS Review 95/2000  long run inflation was higher than it otherwise would have been, with no gain in real output. The more systematically monetary policy was used to fine-tune economic activity, the more the inflationary consequences of such policies were anticipated. An anticipated monetary stimulus would be passed through immediately to prices with no affect on real output. A second problem of the monetary policy is the need for a nominal anchor. If monetary policy could not be expected to dampen business cycles by fine tuning, it might do so by stabilizing inflation expectations as the result of a clear and credible commitment to a nominal anchor that is believed to stabilize prices on average in the long run.

As of today, the lower limit for trade execution appears to be around 10 micro-seconds. This means it would in principle be possible to execute around 40,000 back-to-back trades in the blink of an eye. If supermarkets ran HFT programmes, the average household could complete its shopping for a lifetime in under a second. Imagine. It is clear from these trends that trading technologists are involved in an arms race. And it is far from over. The new trading frontier is nano-seconds – billionths of a second. And the twinkle in technologists’ (unblinking) eye is pico-seconds – trillionths of a second. HFT firms  3  Mackenzie (2011) provides a brilliant recent account of the role of HFT, in particular in the context of the Flash Crash. HFT is a sub-set of a broader class of algorithmic trading strategies. See also Aldridge (2010). BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  talk of a “race to zero”. This is the promised land of zero “latency” where trading converges on its natural (Planck’s) limit, the speed of light. 4 The race to zero seems like a million miles from the European coffee shop conversations of the 17th century and the noisy trading floors of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The dawn of electronic trading coincided with the dusk for floor trading. Physical proximity lost its allure. As soon as computers processed faster than traders talked, the time was up for human interactions on physical exchanges. Trading became virtual, distance a dinosaur. Or so it seemed.