samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
However, in contrast to the uncertainties created by securities valuations in 2008 and 2009, banks should largely be in good positions to forecast the loan losses facing them, using their internal models, and they should thus be in a better position to manage the potential future write-downs without unexpected capital shortages. The second risk that we have identified within the euro area financial system relates to vulnerabilities of financial institutions associated with concentrations of lending exposures to commercial property and to Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. You may recall that, in the December issue of the FSR, we drew your attention to these two types of exposures. Since then, in the commercial real estate sector, prices and rents have continued to fall in most euro area countries, although at a moderating pace. Reflecting this deterioration, estimates of losses facing banks on their commercial property loan portfolios had been revised upwards by almost 50% over the past six months, as shown in Chart 7 on slide 12, and concerns remain about concentrations of such exposures among some euro area banks. This increase in estimated losses on commercial property loans is expected to more than offset the recovery in the valuations of commercial mortgage-backed securities held by banks in the euro area. As regards banks’ exposures to the CEE region, since December, the economic outlook in the region has improved.

In particular, they should ensure that they have adequate capital and liquidity buffers in place to cushion the risks, should they materialise. Fourth, and against this background, the problems of those financial institutions that remained overly-reliant on enhanced credit and government support will have to be tackled decisively. At the same time, fundamental restructuring will be needed when the long-term viability of banks is likely to be threatened by the taking away of state support. This may involve the shrinking of balance sheets through the shedding of unviable businesses, with a view to enhancing profit-generating capacities. Fifth, for the longer-term, a key objective of the agenda for regulatory reform is to strengthen capital and liquidity buffers so as to ensure a safer financial system that is more robust to adverse disturbances. Swift completion of the process of calibration and implementation of these necessary reforms should remove related uncertainties and allow banks to optimise their capital planning and, where necessary, adjust their business models. Thank you very much for your attention. I am now at your disposal for questions. 6  BIS Review 75/2010  BIS Review 75/2010  7  8  BIS Review 75/2010  BIS Review 75/2010  9  10  BIS Review 75/2010  BIS Review 75/2010  11  12  BIS Review 75/2010  BIS Review 75/2010  13
Thus, as is the case in other developed 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  countries, commercial banking business margins remain at low levels in what is a stillunfavourable setting marked by the contraction in lending and the low level of interest rates. I shall make some brief comments later on the challenge of profitability. 5. What are the challenges that lie ahead? In recent years the environment in which the banks operate has undergone a significant transformation, owing to the changes in economic conditions and to the shift in attitudes provoked by the crisis, among investors, consumers of banking services and also the financial authorities themselves. As a result, banks are being required to make significant strategic adjustments. From among the numerous challenges facing the industry in the short term, I would like to highlight three: i) those resulting from the far-reaching changes in the regulatory and supervisory framework; ii) those arising from the lower business profitability; iii) and lastly, those associated with restoring banking customer confidence in the wake of the reputational damage suffered during the crisis. i)  Regulation  The first main challenge facing banks is the need to adapt to the new European regulatory and supervisory framework. As I have said, Spanish banks have successfully adapted to the new capital requirements, comfortably meeting the new limits established in the prudential regulations deriving from Basel III which have now been incorporated into Spanish law and are to be gradually phased in.

More importantly, it is to avert a sharp slowdown in economic activities. Financial liberalisation Bank Negara Malaysia has also remained committed to the objectives of the Financial Sector Master Plan (FSMP) issued in 2001. The recently announced liberalization measures, for example, forms part of the concluding phase of the FSMP which is to liberalise the banking sector by allowing for the increase in operational flexibilities, product offering and, the issuance of new licenses by 2011. But, as capacity and institutional building efforts continue to be pursued, it must be complemented by enhancements in regulatory, supervisory and surveillance framework to preserve the integrity and resilience of the financial system. Clearly this is the distinction which must be made with de-regularisation per se. Islamic banking Islamic banking also remains as one of the key agendas under the FSMP. Also in the recently announced liberalisation measures, we will issue up to two new licenses given the growing demand and the need to give further boost to the MIFC initiative. As we have more than two decades of experience in this area, Bank Negara Malaysia will continue to build on this competitive advantage to ensure Malaysia remains at the forefront of global Islamic banking. It is therefore encouraging to note that Islamic finance has continued to demonstrate its evolution and strong growth as assets have expanded by 22% to RM192 billion in 2008 alone and now accounts for 15.0% of the total assets in the industry.
With the promising economic potentials ahead of us, I would like to reemphasize our shared vision of “What we shall expect to see for the future of the Greater Mekong Subregion” and “How we can achieve such prosperity.” 4. I picture the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) in the next twenty years as a much more connected and integrated region: a region where we are not only connected solely by a river, but by various modes of transportation, where one can travel conveniently, where trade and investment can flow across efficiently, and where prosperity can be widely enjoyed even by those in the rural areas. Although we are not yet there, I strongly believe that this vision can come true. 5. We always hear the saying “Rome was not built in a day”. Thus, we have to start working together towards our shared vision starting today. There is a great deal of preparatory work to be done; but in my view, some of the most crucial tasks are infrastructure development and businesses access to funds. The first task is channelling intraregional funds to infrastructure projects, followed by the second task of promoting economic growth and equality within the region through enhancing financial markets and supporting private financing. Ladies and Gentlemen, 6. Let me highlight key issues on the first preparatory work, which is financing infrastructure development. The ADB has already committed at least 9 billion US dollars1 to fund its GMS development projects in the pipeline.

Whether or not a banking licence is required, stable coin issuers must abide by certain regulations just like any other financial market participant. These range from investor and data protection to rules on combating money laundering and terrorism financing. As you see, ladies and gentlemen, stable coins present many regulatory challenges, which in turn require close cooperation between the various authorities. This is particularly true of cross-border projects like Libra. In addition to the regulatory issues, there is the question of whether stable coins might influence the effectiveness of monetary policy. If Swiss franc stable coins were to proliferate in Switzerland, this would have no immediate impact on the effectiveness of our monetary policy. In such a scenario, the Swiss franc would remain the relevant currency. The stable coins pegged to Swiss francs would simply be another Swiss franc-denominated form of money alongside bank deposits and cash. As long as prices, wages and loans are set in Swiss francs, the SNB can influence incentives for savers and borrowers via its monetary policy and thus ensure price stability over the medium term. However, if stable coins pegged to foreign currencies were to establish themselves in Switzerland, the effectiveness of our monetary policy could be impaired. How close stable coins will get to good money and what additional benefits they will offer versus traditional types of money remains to be seen. What matters is that the various book and token money providers operate under identical competitive and regulatory conditions.
In this tradition Alan Greenspan when being the chairman of the US Federal Reserve System pointed out that: “Too often in the past, policymakers responded late to unfolding economic developments and found they were behind the curve .... Those who wish for us ... to await clearly visible signs of emerging inflation before acting are recommending we return to a failed regime of monetary policy that cost jobs and living standards. I wish it were otherwise, but there is no alternative to basing policy on what are unavoidably, uncertain forecasts”. Forecast is a keystone for our monetary policy framework, i.e. inflation targeting, yet practical forecasting is pretty far from being an easy job. The rule number one in this business is that whereas a failure in the stochastic part of the forecast is still something you can live with, a failure in forecasting trend changes can cause enormous inaccuracy of the forecast. Consequently, forecasting techniques do not necessarily have to match for any short-run movement; however, they should not fail when break points in the economy are under consideration. As a good example of the above point serves our, i.e. Bank Board of the Czech National Bank, decision to cut the interest rate in August 2008 when there was no visible sign of any recession among the European countries, inflation was above our inflation target because of oil and food prices and the European Central bank raised its interest rate only month before.

Peter Pang: Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation retail bond issues Opening remarks by Mr Peter Pang, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Executive Director of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited, at the Signing Ceremony for the Retail Bond Issue under the HKMC's Retail Bond Issuance Programme, Hong Kong, 1 September 2006. *  *  *  Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation, I welcome you all to this signing ceremony for the new retail bond to be offered to the public next Monday. Five years ago, in October 2001, the HKMC introduced a mechanism to offer retail bonds through placing banks. This move received very warm welcome from both the banking sector and retail investors. So far, we have issued eight retail bonds for a total amount of $ billion. Two major factors are behind the success of the HKMC's retail bond issues. First it is our strong credit rating. In fact, our credit rating has recently been upgraded by S&P’s to AA with stable outlook and by Moody's to Aa3 with positive outlook. Secondly, the HKMC meets the needs of retail investors through continual product innovation. On this occasion, we again bring some new features to our retail bond issuance. Apart from issuing two-year notes in Hong Kong Dollar and in US Dollar, we are introducing a new 10-year Hong Kong Dollar Zero Coupon Bond.
However, both our baseline scenario and the market’s projections expect it to rise again above 4 percent and to stay in the neighborhood for the larger part of 2016. Our currency’s depreciation has been a significant factor behind the increase in inflation, reflected mainly in the CPIEFE inflation for goods which, after averaging –1.9 percent in 2013, has been somewhat below 5 percent since July this year. Add to this the indirect effect on other prices via indexation to past inflation. Aside from the sustained depreciation of the peso, the persistence of high inflation is also related, as was stressed in September, with the fact that output gaps, despite some increase, are of a smaller magnitude than they have been in other low-growth cycles, making it difficult for non-tradable goods inflation to make a bigger adjustment (figure 1). The evolution of output gaps is most evident in the labor market, where the unemployment rate remains low and annual growth of total employment hovers around 2 percent, with salaried employment showing faster growth at the margin. While nominal wages have had a gradual moderation since late 2014, they are expanding at about 6 percent annually (figure 2). Meanwhile, fuel prices have dropped and foodstuffs inflation has slowed. The recent adjustment of public sector wages should help to contain wage pressures. Our baseline scenario estimates that GDP will grow by 2.1 percent in 2015, within the range we foresaw in September.

Figure 14 Return on equity (ROE) and solvency (CAR) of the banking system (percent)  20  15  ROE (1)  15  14 CAR (2) (right axis)  10  5  13  10  11  12  13  14  15  12  (1) Profit over basic capital. (2) Effective equity over risk-weighted assets. Source: Central Bank of Chile based on SBIF data. BIS central bankers’ speeches  15  Figure 15 Cross-country CAR comparison (*) (percent) 25  25 Chile  Median  P25-75  Min-Max  20  20  15  15  10  10  5  5 2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  (*) Effective equity over risk-weighted assets. Source: Central Bank of Chile based on SBIF and IMF data. Figure 16 Impact of stress tests on CAR (1) (2) (3) (percent) 16  16  14  14  12  12  10  10  8  8  6  6 Initial  Stress  Initial  First half Min-Max  Stress Second half  P25-75  System  Median  (1) Figures are weighted by the basic capital of each institution. (2) Estimates do not consider Treasury banking, foreign trade or consumption that has quit the system. (3) Min = 1st percentile; Max = 90th percentile. Source: Central Bank of Chile based on SBIF data. 16  BIS central bankers’ speeches
BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The starting point for the 2016 fiscal consolidation strategy is, firstly, the assumption that the government deficit target for 2015 will be met, which requires a reduction of 1.6 pp of GDP with respect to the deficit observed in 2014. The available information on the budget outturn to date in National Accounts terms shows that, on data to May, the consolidated aggregate of central government, regional government and Social Security recorded a deficit of 2.2% of GDP, close to 0.2 pp of GDP lower than the figure recorded in the same period of the previous year. In relation to this information, it should be noted that the Social Security surplus decreased by 0.2 pp of GDP, compared with the required improvement of 0.5 pp, and the regional government deficit narrowed by 0.1 pp of GDP, compared with the reduction of 1 pp envisaged for the whole year. In consequence, in order to meet the general government deficit target for the year, the increase in revenue and/or the containment of spending in the remainder of the year will need to be greater than that observed in the early months of the year.

Luis M Linde: Performance of and outlook for the Spanish economy Testimony by Mr Luis M Linde, Governor of the Bank of Spain, before the Senate in connection with the draft State budget for 2016, Madrid, 23 September 2015. *  *  *  Luis M Linde: Performance of and outlook for the Spanish economy Testimony by Mr Luis M Linde, Governor of the Bank of Spain, before the Senate in connection with the draft State budget for 2016, Madrid, 23 September 2015. Ladies and gentlemen, In my appearance today, as part of the process of discussion and approval of the budget in the Senate, I will focus on analysing the performance of, and outlook for, the Spanish economy and on the role of the State budget for 2016, following approval of the draft law by the government on 31 July, and the role of the Budget Plan for 2016, submitted to the Council of Ministers on 11 September. The external setting of the Spanish economy Heightened uncertainty is presently the most noteworthy feature of the external setting of the Spanish economy. The recovery in the advanced economies and the return to normal on the international financial markets have been affected by the consequences of the global economic slowdown, as a result of the downturn in some emerging economies, particularly China, and especially in light of the difficulties involved in assessing its real magnitude in the medium term.
Between 2007 – right before the last recession – and last year, employment grew by 10 percent in New York City, making it one of the best performing areas in the nation. In the Bronx, employment grew even faster, rising by more than 14 percent. While job creation in the Bronx has been quite broad-based, I would like to highlight two particular industries, each very different in nature, to illustrate the diversity of Bronx’s economy. Both health services and wholesale food distribution have been flourishing here. These sectors, on average, pay relatively well and both have been contributing strongly to 1  Jason Bram, Christopher Calabia, Tony Davis, Jacqueline Fenton, Claire Kramer Mills, Don Morgan, James Orr, Joseph Tracy and Luis Uranga assisted in preparing these remarks. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  overall job creation and to the borough’s economic resurgence. By health services, I don’t just mean hospitals and clinics serving the local population. For example, Montefiore Medical Center is a nationally-ranked institution in a variety of specialties as well as a highly regarded teaching hospital. Additionally, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate medical school and clinical research facility. And, of course, the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center houses institutions such as the Fulton Fish Market, which moved here from lower Manhattan about a decade ago. But, of course, these aren’t the only industries driving the Bronx economy.

Community banks will play a key role in spurring this progress, so it is essential that they remain financially sound and engaged. The financial crisis provides many lessons for how banks can thrive even in turbulent economic conditions. The vitality of the Bronx and other communities depends on the ability of entrepreneurs to establish and grow new businesses. While access to credit is important, success depends on a wide range of factors, and we need to make sure new business owners have the help they need to prosper. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5
Mr. Chairman, as you are aware, Zambia’s economy has continued to grow underpinned by growth in various sectors including Agriculture which has recorded significant increase in output of maize in 2009 and 2010. It is also worth noting that a large portion of the Zambian population depends on agriculture for its livelihood, yet lending to agriculture has been limited. The challenge, therefore, is to devise financial products that meet the requirements  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  of the rural and pre-dominantly agricultural areas while at the same time devising means of “ring fencing” the financial institutions from risks associated with agricultural lending. However, I am pleased that the improved performance in the agricultural as well as other sectors of the economy is expected to continue, which will invariably translate into higher incomes in Zambia. Potentially, the scope for savings both in the formal and informal sectors is expected to improve; hence, products such as the one CETZAM is launching today are likely to capture this potential. Furthermore, I am reliably informed that the “Tusunge” Savings Product offers a cheaper option of funding for CETZAM which undoubtedly should trigger a reduction in the cost of credit. The product has a minimum deposit balance of K20,000, unlimited withdrawals, no withdrawal charges and an interest rate of 6 percent per annum. The product is specifically targeted at the informal sector and SMEs.

In conclusion, allow me to reiterate the Bank of Zambia’s concerns with regard to high lending rates being charged by financial institutions, especially Microfinance Institutions, which are inhibiting the expansion of credit. I acknowledge that some financial institutions have begun to lower their interest rates but I am certain that there is room to do more. The continued lowering of lending rates by Microfinance Institutions will not only stimulate our economy but also reduce non-performing loans in the industry as low lending rates reduce the risk of default. I am informed that CETZAM’s interest rates range from 48% to 72% per annum. I have also been informed that CETZAM introduced an agricultural loan product for rural areas and last year lowered the interest rate from 60% to 48% per annum. It is my sincere hope that CETZAM will further reduce lending interest rates to these clients that they are targeting for savings deposits. The Bank of Zambia undertakes to continue pursuing policies that will drive financial innovation, build strong financial institutions and partnerships to ensure a stable financial sector in the country. It goes without saying that strong financial institutions can weather shocks more easily and thus contribute to Zambia’s economic growth. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Finally, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to take this opportunity to once again congratulate and commend the Management of CETZAM for introducing this new savings product, which is expected to improve the savings culture of the ordinary Zambians in the community.