samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
You know people talk about, well, it’s hard to know where to operate in a gray area, I think a lot of the behavior was way over the line. When people are getting together in chat rooms trying to talk about how they can collude to rig a market, that’s not in the gray area. That’s way over the line. When people are consciously doing things to evade any money laundering rules and sanctions, that’s not in a gray area, that’s way over the line. So I feel that most of the things that have resulted in fines can be tied to things that are not in a gray area. They’re just way over the line. Now the question of whether the fines are excessive – I mean it’s hard to know how you take the behavior and then map it back onto the fine. I think the important thing, though, is to make the fines big enough so that the senior management of these institutions doesn’t just say, “Well, I can just write a check, accept the bad behavior, and move on." If the fines are substantial, then it actually gets some senior management’s attention, and I think that’s one of the reasons why banks are working harder on the issues of culture in their institutions. I’ve actually been very – you know, you asked me the question, is bank bad behavior over?

President Dudley: Well, I think we – as I said before, I think we have a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen on immigration and trade. Most economists – the overwhelming number of economists – think that open and free trade is a good thing, comparative advantage, you want to produce the goods and services that you’re best at producing and let other people produce the goods and services that they’re best at producing, and that actually generates gains for both sides. That’s really the theory of trade. So I think that’s – so I think we don’t want to lose sight of that. Obviously, to the extent that we – I think it’s very – it’s way too soon to sort of see how this is going to evolve. It could evolve in the direction where we negotiate hard and we get somewhat better trade deals for the U.S. and trade barriers around the world don’t go up very much at all, if at all. That’s probably not a bad outcome for the U.S., and I don’t think it’s a bad outcome for the world. Or you could go down the path that was quite a bit more pessimistic than that. So, I think it’s just too soon to sort of see which direction. You know, the Federal Reserve is going to obviously take the world as it is. I mean we – our objectives are set by Congress. Very clearly, maximum sustainable employment in the context of price stability.
Institutions that are able to embrace new technological developments and offer customers additional services will benefit from this new integrated market. In a competitive and integrated economy, a forward-looking view is required so that retail payments have a level of safety and efficiency that is comparable with the best national systems in place today. Undoubtedly, this approach will considerably influence the balance of power on the European market of payment services, as well as on our local market. The proposed mechanisms will favour consolidation processes in the sector of payment infrastructure providers, and possibly also in the banking sector itself. SEPA stands for (S)Speed, (E)Efficiency, (P)Positiveness and (A)Automatisation. It is important that the SEPA project is not viewed just as a “one-shot operation”, but rather as a continually evolving project that fosters European integration, seeking to improve all aspects of the euro area retail payments market on an ongoing basis. The SEPA will also make a notable contribution to the socalled Lisbon Agenda, which aims at fostering competitiveness and ensuring the continuous development of the European economy. The National Bank of Poland, as a forward-looking and acting institution, which supports development of the Polish banking sector, has been participating, for two years now, in the TARGET system, and is now proceeding with intensive preparation for the transition  BIS Review 29/2007  1  to the new platform – TARGET2.

To do that, it has involved not only the stakeholders in the euro area, but also those in other countries of the European Union, Poland obviously included, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Communities outside the euro area will thus have the opportunity to participate in euro payment systems, and will be able to adopt SEPA standards and practices, thereby contributing to the establishment of a single market for payment services. The EPC plans first SEPA products to come on the market at the beginning of the next year. Therefore, today’s Bank Forum is an excellent opportunity for an in-depth discussion on the role and place of the Polish payment infrastructure in the SEPA world. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to present you the discussants of our panel, in alphabetical order: Mr. Ryszard Drużyński, Vice President of Raiffeisen Bank Polska, Mr. Krzysztof Kalicki, President of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank Polska, Mr. Ronnie Richardson, President of the Management Board of Kredyt Bank, Mr. Witold Zieliński, Vice President of the Management Board of Citibank Handlowy. I would like this discussion to be broad and dynamic, that's why feel free to join it. First, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that changes ahead of us are needed to move towards a more integrated payments market, which will bring substantial economic benefits. The SEPA will not only introduce more comparable services, but will also foster competition and drive innovation.
This is why the Banco de España opted, in its publication on 20 April, to prepare several alternative scenarios using different analytical tools.2 In any of the scenarios considered, confinement would translate into a very severe contraction in Spanish GDP in 2020, all the greater the longer the period during which it is necessary to retain the restrictions on economic activity, and with greater risks that the 2  See Banco de España (2020), “Reference macroeconomic scenarios for the Spanish economy after Covid-19”, Analytical Articles, Economic Bulletin, 2/2020. 11  liquidity problems many economic agents are currently facing will lead to situations of insolvency. Looking ahead to next year, these scenarios outline a recovery in activity and employment which, nonetheless, would be insufficient for GDP to attain its pre-COVID-19 trend level. Specifically, in the two scenarios recently published by the Banco de España that seem most realistic at present, having ruled out the third which projected a shorter and more moderate recession, GDP is expected to fall by 9.5% and 12.4%, respectively, in 2020 (and post subsequent increases of 6.1% and 8.5% in 2021).3 The figures in the first of these scenarios do not differ significantly from those reported by other national and supranational institutions, public and private alike. Thus, for example, the Spanish Government, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission have recently projected declines in our economy of 9.2%, 8% and 9.4% for 2020, respectively.

Over time, our economies have become closely intertwined from a trade and financial standpoint. In situations of shared shocks such as this, there are even stronger reasons for acting in unison. In any event, it should be borne in mind that although the pandemic has spread to all countries in the euro area, its intensity across the board is uneven. The degree of economic exposure to the effects of the containment measures also varies, for example as a result of different productive structures. Nor must we forget that the starting position of each country in facing this crisis, in terms of public debt, of budget deficit and, therefore, of fiscal space and public finances vulnerability, also differed. The result is that the economic impact of the pandemic, both in the short and medium term, will be mixed across countries. Given the degree of integration achieved in the euro area, an adverse performance in one country will have negative consequences, in terms of activity and employment, for others. Pooled action to ensure that all European countries can tackle the crisis in comparable conditions would shorten its duration, protect the productive system and sustain the reality of our shared European destiny. 30  Several European initiatives have so far been adopted in response to the crisis. However, broadly speaking, the volume of these measures has been too modest, and they have not been the most suitable for organising a common fiscal response.
At this level, Octopus must be one of the largest stored value card systems in the world. As regards electronic delivery channels, five banks have already launched transactional websites in Hong Kong, and a further twelve have told us that they are at the planning and development stage. Mobile phone banking is also very much a live issue. Once Y2K is out of the way, I think that we will see a spate of further activity in this area. This reflects the fact that banks are increasingly becoming aware of the need to supply the e-banking product while Hong Kong has a population very ready and willing to accept new technology. Moreover, with 200,000 km of fibre optic cabling, linked to more  1  BIS Review 108/1999  than 1,500 buildings, Hong Kong has one of the finest telecommunications infrastructures in Asia. The financial infrastructure is also one of the most advanced. On the legal front, the Government has already introduced a draft Bill into the Legislative Council to facilitate electronic commerce by granting legal recognition to digital signatures and by establishing a licensing system for certification authorities. Hong Kong Post is establishing a public key infrastructure for Hong Kong and will launch its Certificate Authority service before the end of this year. The HKMA welcomes and fully supports these initiatives. Implications for banks The prospects for e-banking in Hong Kong are therefore favourable. However, there are also risks to be managed, and I shall be looking at these more closely.

For 68 out of the 79 months, inflation was within 0.5 percent of the target - below it for 42 months, above it for 30, and on target for the remaining seven. Notwithstanding the stock market crash and the slowdown in world activity, the UK economy has continued to grow steadily and employment has remained strong. On a longer term view, the decade of inflation targeting since 1992 looks remarkably stable by post-war standards.4 The recent slowdown has been exceptionally mild compared with all previous slowdowns since the beginning of the 1970s, and since 1992 growth in both real GDP and consumer spending has also been significantly less volatile, with 46 quarters of positive growth, and no significant downturn in consumption since mid 1994. Prior to the 1970s, recessions were virtually absent, but real GDP was much more volatile than it has been in the past decade. Of course, better monetary policy and low inflation are only part of this story. It matters that monetary policy has been supported by fiscal discipline. Just as important are the many labour and product market reforms that, over a long period of time, have given us a more flexible and competitive economy, which is capable of adapting quickly to sudden change without prolonged periods of unemployment and under-utilised capacity. Attitudes towards inflation American economist Alan Blinder once said: “Price stability is when ordinary people stop talking and worrying about inflation”. Has low inflation entered our bloodstream yet? This is a hard one but there are some clues.
Coinciding with uncertain growth prospects is the indecisiveness about the exit from policy accommodation especially in the U.S. Global market sentiments since May have turned with the expectation about the Fed scaling back its asset purchases. While all of us know that the exit from the extraordinary stance in the U.S. is inevitable, and is actually looming on the horizon, the timing and the pace remain uncertain and data-dependent. This could actually continue to disrupt the process of global rebalancing for a while. Time and again, taking away the punch bowl has always been a tricky task for central bankers. But the impact has never been more global, given today’s interconnected global financial market. Inconclusive clues about the future world, after all, lead to increased sensitivity to new pieces of information. Beliefs about the future world are shifting fast, and with that come bouts of volatility due to successive rounds of reassessing and repricing risks. To some extent, the recent episode also served as a stress test for emerging market economies, who  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  had to deal with sudden capital movements and volatile asset prices. It also served as a reminder for these countries to ensure that their economic stability is safeguarded as they try to benefit from the increased integration with the global financial market. And importantly, it also served as a reminder for these countries to re-examine the robustness of their growth strategy in the face of global headwinds and fickleness.

But despite the extraordinary policies in major economies, despite reassuring words of global authorities, despite considerable reform efforts, the healthy state of full recovery seems to be constantly pushed away from us. At this point in time, the world is still struggling in what I would like to describe as the state of “indecisiveness”. First is the indecisiveness that we have about growth prospects. Mixed signals and counteracting forces abound, and it has become less obvious how global economic forces will -equilibrate. The talk of the two-speed or three-speed world, which was heard frequently earlier this year, proves to be an oversimplication of a much more complicated reality. Among advanced economies, the U.S. and Japan seem to have gathered some tangible traction as of late. But one should be reminded that the impact of sequestration in the U.S. is still yet to be felt fully. And one should also be reminded that for Japan, contradicting policy objectives could lead to considerable trade-offs, coupled with the fact that the public debt situation there could become more sensitive to possible rises in bond yields given that we are already in the later stage of the global easing cycle. On the other hand, emerging Asia continues to post relatively high growth compared to the rest of the world. But in the absolute term, economic momentum seems to be losing some steam, and it is also possible that the extent of the shadow banking problems in China could be underestimated.
In this context, the Bank of Albania: reduced the policy rate to a historical low of 0.5%, in March 2020, and established the needed operational conditions to supply with sufficient liquidity to banks; provided the necessary regulatory relief and instructed banks to help enterprises and 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  households in difficulties, through the placement of a short-term moratorium on credit instalments as well as in the form of a targeted credit restructuring; temporary forfeited the commissions applied by banks on the use of electronic payment platforms and the fees applied on the interbank transactions costs for the payment systems AIPS and AECH operated by the BoA; last, we suspended the distribution of profit from commercial banks for 2020 to enable the maintaining of capital adequacy of the banking system. The stimulating measures undertaken by the Bank of Albania were coordinated with an augmented fiscal stimulus. Fiscal stimuli were in the form of tax relief and direct transfers to households and enterprises, whose income were affected by the closure of the activity and in the form of sovereign guarantees on loans to enterprises, aimed at minimising the negative effect from income and preserving the liquid position in their balance sheets. The simulating macro-economic policies helped in containing the impact of the pandemic on the real and financial sectors of Albania, and succeeded in safeguarding the macroeconomic stability uncompromised. The economic contraction, fall of employment and the damage in the financial balances of enterprises resulted lower than our initial projections.

Gent Sejko: New normal - challenges and opportunities Keynote speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the Conference on “New normal: Challenges & Opportunities”, European University of Tirana, Tirana, 30 April 2021. * * * Honourable Professor Gjuraj, Honourable Professor Xhepa, Dear students and participants, It is a great pleasure for me to greet the proceedings of this Conference on the “New normal”. This topic is both an emergent and unresolved issue of the current economic debate. We altogether: policy makers; academics; and operators in the private sector, are aware that a new reality lies ahead in the post-pandemic world. “What would be the contours of this new reality?”; “What challenges and opportunities lie ahead of the private sector?” and “Which will be the objectives and instruments of the monetary policy”. These questions still lack a thoroughly answer. For this reason, I would like to thank the European University of Tirana, for selecting this topic of an utmost importance. The European University of Tirana is a hearth of knowledge which has succeeded in positioning at the centre of: education; academic discussion; and innovation enhancement. Today, it manifests a consolidated profile in the academic debate. While trying to summarise the Bank of Albania’s opinion on the selected topic, following, I will address in my speech three specific issues: First, I will show briefly the impact of the pandemic on the Albanian economy and the measures taken by the Bank of Albania to minimise its effects.
In the euro area, core inflation has been above 2% since October 2021 and above 4% since July 2022. Another feature of the inflation shock we are facing is its persistence. This may affect inflation expectations and lead to a de-anchoring. Current inflation levels require that we clearly show our monetary determination. We know, though, that the significant changes in monetary policy we have taken already will take at least a year or more to affect the economy. But it is our clear forecast and will to bring inflation back towards 2% within the next two to three years. I am not convinced either by the trade-off between fighting excessive inflation and avoiding a recession. There are at least three clear reasons to prioritize price stability (i) legal: our mandate is focused on price stability (ii) political: our fellow citizens care first and foremost about inflation and its impact on purchasing power (iii) economic: entrenched inflation would mean less confidence, higher risk premia, and greater price distortion, and hence less long term growth. Furthermore, the euro area economic starting point remains relatively favourable this year. The labour market is very strong with many vacancies and the unemployment rate stood at a historical low of 6.6% in July and August. Annual GDP growth in 2022 is expected to reach 3.0% according to the latest IMF projection – almost twice the US growth -, although a slowdown is forecast in the second half of the year after the robust growth of the first semester.

And they could become more positive as a result of two possible changes: downward move in inflation expectations, and further upward adjustments in expected nominal interest rates. 9  Page 10 sur 14  2.3 Some initial thoughts on the balance sheet Another issue that we will need to confront is the normalization of our balance sheet. It has expanded in recent years through numerous programmes (APP, PEPP, TLTROs,..) and is now just short of 9 trillion euros. It would not be consistent to keep a very large balance-sheet for too long in order to compress the term premium, whilst at the same time contemplating tightening policy rates above neutral. In addition, rising remuneration on very large excess reserves may alter the transmission of the desired tightening through the bank channel. But obviously, this question is less pressing than the rise of interest rates to neutral, and should come only at a later stage. Let me simply put forward at this stage a few preliminary principles that could in my personal view guide the normalisation of our balance sheet, in due time:  First, our key interest rate should remain our primary instrument to adjust our monetary policy stance. The size of our balance sheet should be used as a complementary policy tool, whose effects are more difficult to calibrate or finetune.
The Bank of Albania deems that the banking industry should review the banking activity growth strategies, aiming at their better harmonization with the necessary human, financial and technological resources. Operational risk identification and management remain a priority. In practical terms, this process should aim at placing internal mechanisms to prevent creation of excesses in certain directions of the banking activity, aiming at a better diversification of investments and supporting steadier forms of financing resources. All these require strengthening of internal audit systems, stimulation of structures that assess and manage operational risks in general, bank staff expertise, and establishment of stable relations with depositors and other beneficiaries of banking services through transparency enhancement.

Deposit withdrawal from the banking system was withstood, thanks to liquid assets adequacy, capital availability and Bank of Albania’s intervention to supply the market with liquidity, aiming at maintaining its stability and mitigating any expected contraction of the banking system’s intermediary role. To this end, the Bank of Albania has supported the demand of the banking system for liquidity through open market operations. After cutting interest rate by 0.5 percentage point in January 2009 and mitigating inflationary pressures at home, the monetary policy paid special attention to financial stability, keeping base interest rate unchanged for the whole period. Thus, it was aimed to support the demand for financial assets denominated in the national currency in the short run. At the same time, the Bank of Albania carried out with a strong supervisory regime on banking sector developments. Such a stance supported the efficient management of liquidity situation of the banking sector, oriented credit towards national currency and influenced the maintaining of financial stability parameters and capitalization of activity. The situation entered into a qualitative improvement stage, following the re-starting of the process of public deposit growth in the banking sector. This process, which took place gradually and steadily in the second quarter of 2009, continued at satisfactory paces. During this period, banks acted with due prudence and accountability. Therefore, I would like to avail myself of the opportunity to thank you, the staff you manage, as well as the shareholders of your institutions, for their commitment and cooperation during this period.