samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In one breath they say that we should not adopt the euro – so that we can keep our own currency and hence retain the ability “to weaken the koruna in bad times” – and then criticise the Czech National Bank for doing exactly that in the bad times of 2013. They then happily add that Greece would have benefited from having its own currency and that Germany is profiting from the euro being weaker than the Deutschmark would have been. The same, however, doesn’t go for the Czech Republic after 2013. These endearing inconsistencies are present throughout the population. Here again, however, the Eurozone and its satellites offer parallels. The Danes have a fixed exchange rate against the euro (and previously had a fixed rate against the mark) and thus in effect “buy in” monetary policy from Frankfurt. They have their own notes and coins but not their own monetary policy. Note this fine “Scandinavian paradox”: the Danes have an opt-out from the euro following their 2000 referendum, yet they do not make their own monetary policy, nor did they before the euro was created, whereas the Swedes do not have an opt-out (although they have been trying not to fulfil the criteria and not to join ever since rejecting the euro in their 2003 referendum), yet they pursue autonomous monetary policy. I sometimes wonder whether the Czech sitting-on-the-fence approach is heading towards the Danish model. It wouldn’t be my choice, but it’s good to be prepared. 8.

That is why we are currently engaged in reviewing our anti-money laundering guideline. In doing so, we are making particular reference to two main sources. The first is the paper on Customer Due Diligence for Banks issued by the Basel Committee in October 2001. The other is the consultation paper released by the FATF in May of this year on its review of the FATF Forty Recommendations that set the international standards on anti-money laundering. I would strongly recommend that all AIs familiarise themselves with both documents. Comments on the FATF Consultation Paper are due by the end of this month. The process of revising the FATF Recommendations will probably not be completed until some time next year. Final revisions to our own guideline will probably have to wait until then. In the meantime, however, we are reluctant simply to leave our existing guideline unchanged. There may be a number of areas where it is possible for it to be updated to reflect the current international consensus and to draw together pieces of guidance on particular issues that have appeared in circulars over the last few years. We are considering the best way to do this. One option is to issue a supplement to the existing guideline, pending the final revisions. Whatever we do will, as always, be the subject of consultation with the industry. In some places the revised standards may have to be tighter and permit fewer exceptions than at present.
6 Anna Kovner and Antoine Martin (2020), Expanding the Toolkit: Facilities Established to Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Liberty Street Blog, Federal Reserve Bank of  New York. 7 For more details on the measures of corporate bond market functioning, please see the facility FAQs. 8 See Federal Reserve announces extensive new measures to support the economy, March 23, 2020. 9 CCF eligibility was designed to target domestic non-financial issuers, concentrating our resources on firms that do not have access to funding through deposits, as do banks  and bank holding companies 10 To focus on U.S. businesses and not banks, the facilities exclude depository institutions and depository holding companies. Eligible bonds are non-depository institution  bonds maturing within five years, issued by companies domiciled and incorporated in the U.S. For full details on eligible bonds, see term sheets for the PMCCF and the SMCCF. 11 The preponderance of the Federal Reserve’s ETF purchases—87 percent at September month-end—are rated investment grade. 12 The weightings are determined after limits are applied at the issuer’s parent company level (10 percent of all bonds subject to an $ billion cap) and allocated across  eligible bonds. 13 See New York Fed Announces the First Wave of Firms Selected To Broaden its Counterparty Base for CPFF and SMCCF, September 9, 2020. 14 Nina Boyachenko, Anna Kovner, and Or Shachar (2020), It’s What You Say and What You Buy: A Holistic Evaluation of the Corporate Credit Facilities, Federal Reserve  Bank of New York Staff Reports No. 935, July 2020.

In particular, FSTEP will offer scholarships to eligible top graduates from various universities to participate in its one-year fast-track training programme. I wish to congratulate FSTEP for the successful effort in designing a new syllabus and it continuous effort to improve the FSTEP programmes remain contemporary and relevant agreed to by all parties within the financial services industry. More importantly, it is my hope that FSTEP will continue to produce the quality of graduates that will meet the needs of the industry. I hope that all of you will have a fruitful discussion and dialogue. On this note, I declare open the event “FSTEP: Syllabus Enhancement”. 2  BIS Review 100/2010
If use of the franc were to be crowded out by the euro, the Swiss National Bank would have had little leverage left to influence monetary conditions in Switzerland. It would become a sort of paper tiger! c)  Third, even short of a full “euro-ization” of the Swiss economy, we feared the loss of our monetary policy autonomy. Given the importance of the common currency for the Swiss economy, what else could the Swiss National Bank do other than follow the European Central Bank’s policy and de facto integrate the franc into the euro zone? A gradually shrinking interest-rate differential between euro and Swiss franc investments as well as a loss in monetary autonomy would have resulted. How does our recent experience relate to these concerns? 3. Our experience as an independent monetary entity  a)  The euro/swiss franc relationship  Our fears of a euro destabilizing the Swiss franc did not materialize. Relative to the euro, and since its introduction, the franc has been fluctuating in a relatively narrow band of plus or minus 5 percent, about four times less than against the dollar during the same period. The Swiss franc appears now to be less affected by exchange rate shocks and more shielded from speculative movements. In the past, the franc was overreacting to the dollar’s fluctuations, so that the pain of an appreciation of our currency relative to the greenback was exacerbated by a simultaneous appreciation of the Swiss franc relative to the German mark.

Over recent years, central banks and economic research have paid increasing attention to these issues. Indeed, the experience in Japan over the past two decades underscores how harmful bursts in asset price bubbles can be for macroeconomic stability, and how difficult it is for policy-makers to mitigate these costs. Indeed, there are quite a number of historical episodes when a collapse in asset prices triggered sustained deflationary trends and problems of financial instability. When discussing asset prices and monetary policy, four questions come to mind: •  First, is it possible to identify the emergence of an asset price bubble in the markets? And if so, how? •  Second, assuming that a bubble has been identified, what can policy-makers do about it? What are their choices and dilemmas? •  Third, what is the concrete situation in equity and housing markets in the euro area at present? •  Finally, what role do asset prices play in the ECB’s monetary policy and what challenges could they pose? How to identify a bubble? Answering the first question is both easy and tricky at the same time: I think, we can all agree that it is very difficult to identify bubbles, not least since we need to distinguish asset price changes that are justified by changes in fundamentals, such as technological advances or changes in risk preferences, from those that are due to misalignments or “irrational exuberance” - to quote a prominent central bank colleague.
But equally I think they can see that when a bank is failing it is in everyone’s interests to resolve the situation quickly and cleanly. I hope that they will be reassured by the extensive safeguards we are now proposing, including the guarantee that no creditor will be made worse off in such a split than they would have been in a conventional insolvency and protection of netting and set-off. Finally, the financial turmoil has also revealed the need for better international crisis management. The experience of Lehmans has shown once again the problems that arise in the insolvency of a large international bank with operations in many countries. We also saw in late September and early October the danger emerging, of the banking equivalent of the old beggar thy neighbour policy on currency depreciation, as individual countries began to guarantee their own banks’ debt. On the other side, recent events have also demonstrated how effective international action can be: the coordinated interest rate cuts on the 8th of October; the provision of dollar liquidity by central banks and the adoption of national measures to support banks at international meetings during the weekend of 11/12 October. International groups such as the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) have already started to take action. It has begun to develop a practical checklist of issues and principles that should guide the management of a distressed cross-border institution.

And progress on guarantees, while gradual, has also been encouraging, with a number of banks issuing bonds even without the use of the guarantee. Libor spreads have also edged down and are now expected to fall a bit further and faster than before the package (Chart 8). Many banks continue to face a period of deleveraging and rebalancing to reduce their dependence on Central Bank finance and on short term wholesale funding. However a stronger capital and financing position will make it possible for them to do that over a period of some years, which will diminish the squeeze on lending in the short run. More widely, of course, the financial system remains under acute strain. The falls in equity markets, corporate bond prices and the prices for leveraged loans is hitting both long term institutional investors and leveraged investors, including hedge funds. Some are being forced to sell into a falling market in response to margin calls and redemptions. BIS Review 132/2008  3  And there are growing signs of stress in many emerging market economies. We have already seen a banking sector and currency crisis in Iceland and in the past few days the IMF has also announced loan packages for the Ukraine and Hungary. In short, the package of measures introduced in the UK and elsewhere has improved the prospects significantly, especially for banks but it is too soon to declare the crisis over. Authorities worldwide need to remain vigilant and to be ready to step in again if necessary.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Banking – serving people and growing with your clients Remarks by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at Citibank’s 200th Anniversary Cocktail Reception, Singapore, 21 August 2012. *  *  *  Mr Vikram Pandit and friends, Thank you for inviting me to this celebration of Citigroup’s 200th anniversary. When we think about the history of economies, it’s sometimes best told through the history of individual firms and institutions. When we think of the history of the global economy too, the tumultuous changes that we’ve been through in the post-war era as well as the last hundred years, let alone 200, it’s again very interestingly told through the story of individual institutions – although few have survived that length of time. I think the history of Citi, in its own way, tells a fascinating story of what happened in the United States and what happened in the global economy. But the exhibits that I was looking at as I walked in say something that is worth reminding ourselves of – that despite all the transformations, all the new technologies that have been brought to bear, the new management methods and regulations, the innovations in finance, banking has still at its core to be about the basics – it still has to be about providing security to ordinary people, providing new standards for global trade, about growing economies. It’s about serving and growing with your clients.

That decision was shaped by the inappropriateness of leaving the listing authority with the LSE when other competing exchanges are emerging in the UK. We believe that the current arrangements for the regulation and supervision of the securities markets between the MAS and SGX, with an enhanced oversight responsibility for the MAS and  4  BIS Review 14/2001  powers to pursue civil prosecution, will prove robust. But we will continually review the arrangement, keep in touch with international practices, and re-calibrate the roles of MAS and SGX where necessary to ensure effective oversight of the local markets. I would now like to touch on two features of the regulatory arrangement that we have recently reviewed. The first concerns the approval of substantial shareholdings in the SGX; the second, proposed changes in the prospectus registration regime. Approval of substantial shareholdings in the SGX The Exchanges (Demutualisation and Merger) Act requires anyone who wishes to acquire 5% or more of SGX to seek prior approval from MAS. This provision recognises the unique and important role of SGX in providing the infrastructure and marketplace for the trading, clearing and settlement of securities and derivatives in Singapore. Strategic investors As announced previously, MAS will allow suitable strategic investors who can promote SGX's growth and development to acquire substantial stakes of 5% or more in SGX.
Because of the stagnation in the 1990s, inflation has been particularly low in Europe in recent years. Norway, on the other hand, experienced a long period of economic expansion in the 1990s. Since 1997, price inflation in Norway has been higher than in euro area countries, which is reflected in the higher level of interest rates in Norway compared with the euro area. The effects of monetary policy In theory, Norges Bank has two monetary policy instruments: the interest rate and exchange market interventions. However, in Norges Bank’s experience, extensive and sustained exchange market interventions to influence the exchange rate have yielded poor results. Interventions can often lead to game situations where market operators perceive the central bank’s attempt to influence the exchange rate as an interesting opportunity to make a profit. Events in autumn 1992, at the start of 1997 and autumn 1998 show that exchange market interventions cannot stem the pressure on the krone. Norges Bank does not want to intervene in such a way that these game situations arise. However, the Bank may use interventions to a limited extent if the krone exchange rate moves substantially out of line with what we consider to be reasonable based on fundamentals or in the event of exceptional short-term volatility in thin markets. In such situations, there is less risk of ending up in a game situation against exchange market operators.

This may involve shifting resources to new areas of business or markets. In striving towards long-term competitiveness. Experience has shown that the aptitude for hard work, prudent practices, the agility to adapt to changing conditions, perseverance and the ability for reinvention are some of the qualities of the successful SMEs in our economy. The creation of the SME Credit Bureau is another milestone in the development of the enabling supporting infrastructure for strengthening the SME sector. The creation of such an information credit bureau industry is a further step forward in generating a financial intermediation process that is more efficient and effective. I hope that financial institutions and the SME Credit Bureau would work together towards making today's initiative achieve its objective. In enhancing greater access to credit to the SME sector, it would strengthen the potential for SME contribution to the economy. BIS Review 47/2009  3
The main challenges for our as well as many other central banks relate to technology that processes enriched data volume, data governance, their standardization for statistical purposes, maintaining the confidentiality principle amid increasing number of individual data, as well as the balance between the growing need for data and the burden it imposes for the economic reporting agents. Technology is currently one of the major challenges for almost all statistical institutions. Data alone is not enough if there is no adequate infrastructure to transform it into a form beneficial for decision-making. One such step ahead of us is building a modern data warehouse. The need to adopt, integrate, process, and report large amounts of data to multiple users on a daily basis requires a modern business intelligence-based information system. Adapting to such a technologically advanced system also requires data governance. Currently, there are several decentralized statistical databases, registries created for specific purposes of statistics and bank activities. The symbiosis of all these sources opens up a new chapter in the central bank – setup of systematized data governance. This process should focus on the need to recognize data as a central bank asset that should be governed at a strategic level. Learning from the experience of the European partners, the implementation requires a clear strategy, policy and guidance, as well as the need for standardization of data definitions, standards for data collection and management. In a word, there is a change in the organizational culture.

26 May 2022  Keynote Speech at ASIFMA China Capital Markets Conference Edmond Lau, Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority Onshore Market Development 1. Good morning. I’m delighted to join you virtually at this year’s China Capital Markets Conference. First of all, let me take this opportunity to thank ASIFMA for organising this event and inviting me to speak. 2. Today’s agenda focuses on onshore market developments. I would like to share my thoughts on the significance of recent developments in onshore capital markets, as well as the opportunities for international investors. 3. Mainland capital markets are experiencing a period of significant growth, with onshore equity and fixed income markets currently the second largest in the world. However, international investors’ exposure to China’s capital markets remains relatively small. Only around 4% of onshore equities and 3% of onshore bonds are owned by foreign investors, which is low by international standards and far smaller than China’s weight in the global economy. 4. We are pleased to see the Mainland’s continued commitment to open up onshore capital markets in recent years. The latest developments to facilitate foreign investors’ access to the onshore markets and adopt international standards have been encouraging and welcomed by the industry. Let me highlight a few of them here. 5. First, with the removal of foreign ownership limits, global financial institutions are able to further expand their footprint in China by taking majority or full ownership in their onshore subsidiaries.
Since then, a number of structural forces have probably pulled down the ‘equilibrium’ level of global and domestic real interest rates, making this a conservative calculation. See, for example, Vlieghe (2016) ‘Debt, Demographics and the Distribution of Income’ http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/2016/872.aspx 8 This point was made back in 2012 by my colleague Ben Broadbent. See Broadbent, B. (2012) ‘Deleveraging’, remarks given at Market News International, London, on 15 March 2012. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Documents/historicpubs/speeches/2012/speech553.pdf  9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  9  Lenders’ own assessments of how risky these loans are, which they use to calculate how much capital they need to withstand losses, have fallen. Over the past two years, these ‘risk weights’ on credit card loans have fallen by 7% and those on other consumer loans by 15% (Chart 11). This improved performance doesn’t reflect a tightening up of lending standards. Credit scores of new borrowers are actually a little lower than they were 2 years ago (Chart 12). Instead, the improved performance of borrowers reflects the environment of continued employment growth and easier credit terms. Lenders have been the lucky beneficiaries of the benign way the economy has evolved. In expanding the supply of credit, they may be placing undue weight on the recent performance of credit cards and loans in benign conditions. Car finance  Car finance has drawn particular attention, with growth of 15% in the past year and more than 100% in the past 4 years. The way we buy cars has been transformed.

François Villeroy de Galhau: Monetary policy transmission Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Annual General Meeting of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), Paris, 25 May 2023. *** Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to deliver this address at this ICMA's Conference in Paris, and I would like to pay tribute to your collective contribution to Capital Markets. Let me thank among others Bryan Pascoe, René Karsenti, Mandy DeFilippo and the ICMA French Regional Committee. In particular, ICMA's emphasis on sustainable finance perfectly echoes our call alongside Christine Lagarde for a "Green Capital Markets Union". It is an important way forward for Europe in the coming years. In the short and medium term, let me focus today on the transmission of monetary policy. In the Euro Area, inflation has begun to fall back, from 10.6% in October 2022 to 7% in April, after 6.9% in March, and is expected to recede by the end of the year. But it will still be too high. And while headline inflation has been declining, underlying price pressures are showing persistence. The Governing Council has already taken prompt and forceful actions to tighten the stance of monetary policy. The increase in policy rates since 2022 has been exceptionally rapid by any historical standards: 7 hikes in less than ten months, amounting to +375 basis points.