samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Both FIDE Forum and ICLIF are uniquely positioned to advance corporate governance in the financial sector. After all, they bring together those who represent the ultimate governing body of financial institutions, with great responsibilities and accountability. Such an opportunity must be capitalised and not wasted. FIDE Forum and ICLIF should therefore complement each other and avoid duplication. There are significant benefits to be gained from an effective partnership where resources can be channelled to increase the collective impact of programmes and initiatives by the two organisations. In my own engagements with the industry, over the years, coordination and cooperation among financial institutions can become game changers for the industry. In this respect, we should fully appreciate the distinctive purpose of ICLIF and the FIDE Forum and how they coordinate with each other within the space of directors’ development. With close coordination and cooperation we can avoid the redundancies and wastage and realise the synergistic benefits from the alliance between the two organisation. Being a director of a financial institution will demand a lot from the individual. It is a position of trust where integrity is the norm. It should be, given the critical role of financial institutions in any economy. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  As a network of financial institution directors, FIDE Forum provides a valuable resource for directors as they navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with the position.

FIDE Forum should continuously raise the bar on director performance by advocating best practices and providing support to its members in helping solve real problems confronting boards today. It should be a respected voice on important issues of corporate governance, an epitome of best practices of corporate Malaysia. Most importantly, it should build an enduring legacy for future leaders of financial institutions by representing within its collective membership the highest standards of integrity, professional conduct and intellectual integrity. Indeed, FIDE Forum’s success must surely be measured not only by how well it serves its current membership, but also by how it expands its reach and influence to attract new leaders of the highest calibre to the financial industry. In short, being a director of a financial institution signifies the embodiment of a person’s self-evident integrity and professionalism. In this endeavour, FIDE Forum and ICLIF need to work collaboratively and exploit the synergies between them. FIDE Forum should leverage on the expertise that has been built within ICLIF in the design and delivery of high quality leadership programs. Similarly, ICLIF should continuously seek to understand the current and future concerns of directors through FIDE Forum, and reflect on how its role in education can help address those concerns. These are mutually reinforcing perspectives. The Directors Register is a good example of this.
It is certainly the case that the recent crisis has been a key factor behind the increase in government indebtedness. In the aftermath of the crisis, governments in the crisis affected economies had to use public funds to rescue troubled banks. For example, Ireland had a government debt to GDP ratio of just 24% in 2007, but due to its banking crisis and its impact on the Irish economy, that number jumped to 111% by 2011 3. In fact, even for countries that were not at the centre of the financial crisis, fiscal spending to stimulate domestic demand was increased to offset the negative real sector shock created by the crisis. The low growth environment also reduced the tax revenues of governments, further eroding public finances. So, the crisis certainly played a role in the worsening of public finances. But that is not the complete story. In many countries, public finances were already stretched even before the crisis. This surely says something about the state of financial governance in the public sector of these economies. In the advanced economies, ageing populations and over-generous health and pension benefits were a major source of strained fiscal positions. Although the threat of demographics to fiscal sustainability is at this juncture most imminent for countries such as Japan, Spain, Italy and Greece, where the old age populations are rising most sharply amid already high levels of debt, it is only a matter of time before many emerging market economies will also face similar issues. That includes countries in ASEAN.

Sukhdave Singh: Financial governance and economic growth Keynote address by Dr Sukhdave Singh, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Malaysian Economic Convention “Financial Governance and Economic Growth”, Kuala Lumpur, 28 September 2015. *  *  *  It is indeed an honour to be speaking to such a distinguished audience. It is also a great pleasure for me to be here this morning and join my colleagues in the Economics fraternity at this 2015 Malaysian Economic Convention. To begin, let me share with you a story. Twenty years ago, on 28 January 1986, the NASA space shuttle Challenger was launched. Seventy-three seconds into its flight, spectators were horrified as the space shuttle broke apart in a fiery display and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean. Seven astronauts died. The catastrophe was traced to the failure of a single O-ring – a simple seal at a joint on one of the rocket boosters. The O-ring failed due to the unusually cold temperatures on the morning of the launch. Relative to the highly sophisticated technologies involved in building and launching the shuttle, the O-ring was considered established technology, one with a patent history of 90 years by the time the Challenger was launched. It was as ironic as it was instructive that such a complex machine, incorporating the most advanced aerospace technology of its time, failed and combusted due to a component as trivial and basic as an O-ring.
Hopefully, the weaker trend during the period that began in the early 1970s has been reversed in the past few years. However, this cannot be taken for granted. One explanation for the recent stronger growth is that the deep recession left a reserve of unutilised resources that could gradually be taken into use. Nevertheless, potential GDP growth is now often said to be between 2% and 2.5%, since most analysts consider that the productivity trend has improved slightly in recent years. 1  BIS Review 137/1999  Figure 1. GDP growth during the 20th century  1. GDP-growth during the 20th century Annual average per decade 6 5 4  Average 3%  3 2 1 0 -1 1900 1910  1920  1930  1940  1950  1960  1970  1980 1990- 19941993 1999  Figure 2. The Swedish population  2. The Swedish population 10  8,9  Million inhabitants  8  7,0 5,4  6 4,2 4 2,6 2 0 1820  1870  1910  1950  2000  In both the 19th and the 20th century the Swedish population has roughly doubled. In 1820 it totalled 2.6 million; at the beginning of the 20th century, it was almost 5 million, and the figure today is almost 9 million. BIS Review 137/1999  2  These figures mean an average annual population growth rate of around 0.7%. That is not the case today; the current figure is closer to approximately half of this level.

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.
In the event of conflicting objectives, it achieves a reasonable compromise between the stability of inflation and the stability of resource  BIS Review 112/2009  1  utilization. 1 Different central banks express this in slightly different words. The Riksbank has often used the term “well-balanced” monetary policy. 2 The forecasts of inflation and the real economy are then conditional on the central bank’s view of the transmission mechanism, an estimate of the current state of the economy and a forecast of important exogenous variables. The central bank uses all relevant information that has an impact on the forecast of inflation and the real economy. In this framework, the central bank takes financial conditions such as credit growth, asset prices, imbalances, potential bubbles and so on into account only to the extent that they have an impact on the forecast of inflation and resource utilization. Inflation and resource utilization are target variables here, that is, variables that are arguments of the central bank’s loss function. Hence, financial conditions are not target variables. Instead, they are only indicators, as they provide information about the state of the economy, the transmission mechanism and exogenous shocks to the central bank. Financial conditions then affect policy rates only to the extent that they have an impact on the forecast of inflation and resource utilization. 3 3. Financial stability as a rarely binding constraint – a pre-crisis view  What is the role of financial stability in a pre-crisis view of flexible inflation targeting?

And the pace of policy reform – in the UK, but also in the EU and globally through the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) – is likely to be on a longer timetable due to Covid-19 being a shared and pressing priority. We recognise that there are certain aspects of the design and implementation of the Solvency II regime that do not fit so well to UK specificities. Our views on these areas are well known, and I believe shared by industry. We understand that the first priority for the industry is the Risk Margin. The current design is too sensitive to long term interest rates and this has the unintended and perverse consequence of driving a high proportion of longevity risk on new business offshore. We are committed to reform of the risk margin. The timing and nature of reform depend, like many questions of regulatory reform, on the final relationship between the UK and the EU. There is a wide range of options that could be pursued and it is encouraging that EIOPA intends to look at the design of the risk margin in the final stages of the 2020 review. Second is the matching adjustment. The PRA supports the concept of the matching adjustment. It provides the right incentives for insurers to invest in assets that are suitable for their business models. This in turn also reinforces a macroeconomic role of insurers, who provide stable, long-term investment.
While it would be ideal to have much broader coverage at this time (as at today, around one-third of global banking assets are officially subject to the Basel III requirements), the delays should not be interpreted as any lack of commitment by global regulators to implement the agreed reforms. At recent international gatherings, all members have been asked to reaffirm their commitment to implementing the agreed reforms as soon as possible. And they have given that commitment (subject, of course, to the vagaries of domestic rule-making processes that each must follow). Nevertheless, let me be clear: the question being discussed is when the reforms will be implemented, not if. Any setback to implementation is undesirable, since Basel III is a key platform on which to rebuild a stronger global banking system. But the delays are not critical at this point, for two reasons. First, the Basel III capital rules contain a lengthy phase-in period, meaning that in 2013 the new requirements should not be particularly burdensome for banks (eg none of the new deductions from capital are applied this year). Second, many regulators who have been unable to implement the new standards by the beginning of this year are still measuring and monitoring their banks’ capacity to meet the new requirements. And, of course, markets are applying similar pressure. In other words, the “force” of the new capital regime is much broader than just those countries that have implemented their domestic regulations.

One also has to bear in mind that favourable terms from central banks have helped to improve bank funding. Central banks serve as lenders of last resort and, as economic conditions improve, banks will need to become more self-reliant. However, the timetable for the gradual introduction of the ratio ensures that the new liquidity standard will in no way hinder the ability of the global banking system to finance a recovery. It has taken a lot of time and effort to reach agreement on the LCR. It is, as I said, a deceptively simple idea, but its implications are big and far-reaching. Unsurprisingly, there is much in the detail that required a lot of careful analysis and thought, not to mention a willingness to find a way through differing national perspectives. It is, however, critical that the new ideas such as the LCR (and the other new features of Basel III such as the capital conservation buffer, countercyclical buffer, leverage ratio and NSFR) are implemented if their benefits are to be realised. Against that background, let me now turn to the work we have started to ensure that the Basel III framework is implemented as intended. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  …. to implementation Steady progress is being made. As of January 2013, 11 out of 19 Basel Committee jurisdictions have final Basel III rules in place, including our hosts today, South Africa. A number of non-member countries also implemented Basel III at the beginning of the year, further expanding its coverage.
The sharp reduction in the ratio of employment to population highlights our challenge – achieving a full recovery will require creating jobs for those currently unemployed and actively seeking work, those entering the labor force as the population grows, and those likely to return to the labor force once jobs become more available. Employing all these workers within a reasonable period of time will require very strong economic growth. The question is, how likely is that? Figure 4 shows the growth rate in each of the first three years of the last three recoveries, as well as the average rates for all three recoveries. The most recent two recoveries were quite slow to get started, but picked up steam over time. This is the pattern projected in most forecasts for this recovery. Over the past three quarters, GDP has increased 3.7 per cent. 3 However, some of the growth resulted from temporary rebalancing of inventories by businesses, as suggested by Figure 5, which shows that the per cent change in real final sales was quite a bit smaller than the per cent change in GDP. The gap between them would be inventory rebuilding. Most private forecasts expect growth in the next four quarters to be fast enough to begin to make more improvement in the labor market. My own expectation is consistent with this. As financial headwinds subside, and consumers and businesses gain more confidence in the recovery, expenditures that have been deferred will be made – and we should begin to see stronger economic growth.

If I plug a destination into my new GPS device, it asks whether I want the quickest route, or the geographically shortest route, or a route that meets some other criteria. The quickest route is likely to involve highways, but may cover more miles. The shortest route may take side roads that reduce distance and save gas, but take substantially more time. And, of course, you may run into traffic or construction that forces you to adapt your route. When setting monetary policy there may be a variety of paths you can take to reach the destination. For instance, aggressive pursuit of accommodative monetary policy by the Fed and stimulative fiscal policy by Congress and the Administration might get us more quickly to our desired destination – but could enlarge the deficit or risk igniting inflation expectations. Alternatively, aggressive pursuit of less accommodative policies – that is, removing monetary and fiscal stimulus sooner rather than later – could result in a more extended period of  1  Of course, the views I express today are my own, not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Board of Governors or the Federal Open Market Committee (the FOMC). BIS Review 62/2010  1  underutilized resources; or worse, significantly increase the length of the journey to our ultimate destination. Right now, we are far from our destination, and the rest of my remarks will focus on selecting among the alternate routes to our objective.
by opposing techno‐utopians and techno‐pessimists, or proponents of “degrowth” to proponents of “green growth”) is not constructive Lastly, given the well‐known limitations of GDP as a measure of well‐being, it is also important to bear in mind that the definition of growth itself is bound to evolve in the future. For instance, as recently stressed by Professor Nicholas Stern and co‐authors in an IMF working paper,17 we should move from a “flow‐ 16  See Keyßer, L.T., Lenzen, M. (2021). 1.5 °C degrowth scenarios suggest the need for new mitigation pathways. Nature Communications 12, 2676. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467‐021‐22884‐9 17 Bhattacharya, A., Ivanyna, M., Oman, W., Stern, N. (2021). Climate Action to Unlock the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century. IMF Working Paper 21/147. 7  centred focus on GDP” to a “stock‐centred focus on a broad definition of capital”; “the conceptual framework used by policymakers must treat planetary boundaries – notably climate overshoot – as a hard constraint”. They also propose to establish an annual carbon budget at the national level which would be binding. In short, if we are to hold a serious discussion about what an ecological transition means for central banks, including the impact it will have on output and other key macroeconomic variables, we need to be able to engage in a responsible and scientific manner on these difficult questions, rather than sweeping them under the rug.

* At the end of the summer 2020, when we began ‐ at our modest deputy level – to launch this conference, we were convinced that the message of the Green Swan was worth spreading, but we were far from sure that it would attract such a prestigious set of speakers. This was before the new momentum we are experiencing thanks to the political shift in the United States, following the ambitious Italian G20 and UK G7 presidencies. Now, only a few months later, the context is quite different. Governments are more aware than ever before, that they need to act, to anticipate; there is more appetite for multilateral cooperation. The private sector is making many commitments to net‐zero emissions. However, a number of questions arise that we cannot answer easily. Three of them seem particularly important: 3  International Energy Agency – IEA (2021). Net Zero by 2050. A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. Accessible at: https://www.iea.org/reports/net‐zero‐by‐2050  2  Should we focus on climate change or broaden the scope? How can we make sure that public policies are consistent? How to thrive within limits? Allow me to develop these points. * I. BEYOND CLIMATE? The Charter of the NGFS,4 adopted in December 2017, states that the network aims, in particular, to “contribute to the development of environment and climate risk management”. It is key to consider how ecological crises are in fact multiple and interconnected.
In addition to deterring errant behaviour, this move will reinforce our preventive supervisory approach, and draw financial institutions’ attention to more severe instances of deficiencies and breaches. Financial institutions can then pre-emptively strengthen their own controls to prevent similar failures. b. Second, the NRA highlighted ML/TF risks inherent in cash-intensive industries and large value cash transactions. In May, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and MAS consulted publicly on a cash transaction reporting regime for precious stones and metals dealers. In a similar vein, given the risks associated with  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  large value cash transactions and high face-value notes, MAS will be discontinuing the issuance of the $ note, starting from 1 October 2014. The development of more advanced and secured electronic payment systems has reduced the need for large value cash-based transactions. Therefore, we do not expect the discontinuation of the note’s issuance to create any major inconvenience. Existing $ notes in circulation will remain legal tender, including all notes under the Currency Inter-changeability Agreement with Brunei. However, we expect the stock of such notes to dwindle over time, as worn notes are returned to us and not replaced. Conclusion 24 Let me sum up. 25 Singapore is fully committed to the global efforts against financial crime. The evolving risk environment requires proactive and collective actions in all jurisdictions. MAS has, and will continue to take steps to further enhance our AML/CFT regime, along with other government agencies for the non-financial sectors.

Rapid advancements in information, communication and payment technologies have led to great conveniences around speed, ease, and often anonymity; so these developments also open up more potential loopholes and avenues for perpetrators to escape detection; hence the momentum on AML/CFT efforts must be maintained. 3 Indeed, the international community has not sat still. As many of you know, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was set up in 1989, and has been the key policy-making body that meets regularly to identify emerging risks and typology, provide guidance, as well as to strengthen or refine international standards. In 2012, a revised set of international standards to combat ML/TF risks was issued, and the FATF has since commenced a new round of mutual evaluations to ensure that countries put in place the necessary controls. Fundamental to this is the importance for countries to understand their ML/TF risks, and adopt appropriate measures to mitigate those risks effectively. A national effort 4 Singapore has and will continue to play our part in this important global effort. As an international financial centre and business hub, our openness exposes us to cross-border financial crimes. Protecting our reputation as a well-regulated and clean financial centre is not negotiable. This is a fundamental tenet upon which our financial centre has developed, and the continued confidence in the integrity of our financial system is a necessary condition for sustaining growth of the sector.