samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
State-owned-bank based financial inclusion: Slide 21 Cuenta RUT in numbers Cuenta RUT (millions of active cards) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0  Starts in 2006. As of 2016:  9.2 8.3  ▪ 900,000 new accounts opened in 2016  7.4  ▪ 52% are female 5.3  ▪ 32% live in rural or remote areas ▪ 75% perceived $ per month (less than two times the minimum wage) or no income  2.9 1.2  06  07  08  ▪ 300.000 are immigrants (69% of total immigrant population) 09  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  ▪ 60% do not have past due loans  Source: BancoEstado.

Gent Sejko: Oversight, analysis and vision of public governance in Albania Speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the presentation of the Supreme State Audit Annual Review 2015, Tirana, 1 February 2016. *  *  *  Your Excellency President of the Republic of Albania, Dear Chairman of the Supreme State Audit institution, Honourable Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Finance, Your excellency Ambassador Lu, Your excellency Minister, Dear representatives of public institutions, Honourable MPs, dear professors, dear participants, It is a special pleasure for me to be here today on the occasion of the annual review of the activity of the Supreme State Audit (ALSAI) for 2015. ALSAI is among the most important constitutional institutions in Albania, whose objective – ensuring good management of public finances – is highly significant. The effective use and certification of public funds in conformity with the laws regulating the economic and financial activity of the public sector, on-going public communication, in relation to irregularities and relevant responsibilities have been at the focus of ALSAI’s work in recent years. In this perspective, the role and mission of the ALSAI are highly important; therefore, the issues raised in ALSAI’s reports should be thoroughly analysed. They are both necessary and preventive instruments for the institutions subjected to ALSAI’s audit. Notably, the Bank of Albania and ALSAI have had a fruitful cooperation, in line with both current and prospective dynamics and developments.
The simple truth is, unless you are on a train, you don’t have the chance to move forward and will never come closer to your destination: Success. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  5. If you feel that I should not be depicting a rather scary train journey on this auspicious and joyful occasion, then please forgive me and let me try another scenario for you to think about, again using my train journey story. 6. Suppose that you have been bumped off the train once or twice and have found your way back onto the next trains to carry on with the journey. You will gradually realise that there are certain rules and disciplines on the train that determine who get the good seats, who can be upgraded from the economy cabin to the business class and then the first class cabin. There are also rules and booking system that govern who can enjoy a good meal at the dining car and when. So you will come to realise that the train is not a wild jungle filled with animals, or people, trying to eat each other alive. You will also discover that there are some passengers who have got upgraded to the business or first class cabin not just because they are muscular or clever. They are ahead of most other passengers because they possess certain qualities that we in modern time called leadership.

It is not a non-stop train and it annoyingly makes many stops on the way. Every time the train stops, there are new passengers boarding the train and, as your cabin is already full, you will always have to fight to protect your seat, or else you may be forced out from your seat. Occasionally, misfortune may fall on you. Not only do you lose your seat, but you are also bumped off the train at one of the stops. While all these passengers who got bumped off the trains will naturally feel aggrieved and frustrated, they can have two kinds of responses. Some would complain to the station master about the unfair or rough way they are treated on the train and demand “justice”. However, some may decide that, since they still have the train tickets in their hands, they’d rather not waste time complaining to the station master about the fierce competition or bad luck, but they should instead try to board the next train that stops at this station. If you belong to this latter category, you may be able to find yourself a seat on the next train, or even a better seat than your previous one. However, there is a difference this time: you have to work really hard, and much harder than before, as you are a late passenger trying to board a train that is already full.
Hopefully, it can also shed some light on how the Bank of Uganda’s role will transform over the coming decades. Optimum currency areas – an illusive concept When discussing whether or not to join or form a monetary union, concerns are usually expressed that the countries in the union at some point will have different needs in terms of stabilisation policy. Consequently, this then casts doubts on the appropriateness of a common, supranational monetary policy. If one country experiences rapid growth while the neighbouring country is in a pronounced downturn, how should monetary policy respond? On the other hand, this type of problem does exist within countries as well, as different regions’ business cycles usually are not perfectly synchronised. Given these two observations, should we strive to create larger or smaller economic entities? In his famous article published almost half a century ago, Nobel laureate Robert Mundell concludes that “[t]he optimum currency area is not the world” (Mundell, 1961). Trying to establish what area would be optimal, it is from a practical perspective more fruitful to translate it into a question of whether or not a country should join a monetary union with other countries. 1 In order to do this, advantages need to be weighed against disadvantages. When forming a monetary union, the member countries in effect lose some of their economic policy flexibility as they no longer have the possibility to individually adjust either their exchange rate, or their short-term interest rate.

But my point is that wherever there is a problem, for instance a problem with trade disputes, that is a real economic problem that is going to have real consequences. You can certainly smooth the impact with monetary policy, but you will not be able to address and fix this kind of problems with monetary policy. The real role of monetary policy is price stability. And in order to guarantee price stability, we have to monitor the evolution of the real economy – domestic demand, external demand, the exchange rate, and the rest. But you cannot fix all the 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  economic problems of the world with monetary policy. President Draghi hinted recently that if there is a slowdown and those downside risks materialise, fiscal policy might also play a role. Yes, sure. It’s the policy mix. Of course there is monetary policy, and we have been the main game in town since 2012. Monetary policy has been key to understanding the recovery of activity and employment creation, among other things. But it’s not the only policy in place. Fiscal policy has to play a role, as do structural reforms. And in the case of fiscal policy, it’s not only the nominal deficit level, it’s the composition as well: the quality of public finances. Are you saying that the public investment-to-GDP share, which has remained flat, at 2.6%, during the QE years, could now increase? It’s not even only public investment.
It is shorter, more selective and clearer on what we think is important and what isn’t. Of course it is not difficult to draw up a long list of possible “triggers” for changes in sentiment in markets. Avian flu or worsening strife in the Middle East are two obvious ones at the moment. What we have tried to do in the new FSR is to identify the features of the economy and the structure of financial markets which could lead an initial shock to turn into a crisis. We set out six main sources of vulnerability. Two of these vulnerabilities are features of the global economy: unusually low premia for bearing risk and the large financial imbalances among major economies. Two relate to the balance sheets of the non-financial sector: rapid leveraging of some parts of the corporate sector and high UK household debt. And two arise from structural dependencies within the financial system: the rising systemic importance of large complex financial institutions (or LCFIs for short) and the heavy dependence of financial institutions on some elements of market infrastructure. In each case the probability of the risk materialising is small but non negligible.

6  Knut Wicksell (1907): “The Influence of the Rate of Interest on Prices”, Economic Journal, XVII (1907), pages 213-220. BIS Review 10/2005  9
Kalin Hristov: Monetary unions in history Welcome remarks by Mr Kalin Hristov, Deputy Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, at the Conference “Monetary Unions in History”, jointly organised by the Bulgarian National Bank and the European Association for Banking and Financial History (eabh) e.V., Sofia, 1 July 2022. * * * Dear Members of the Association, Dear conference participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is an honour to welcome you to this conference which the Bulgarian National Bank organises in cooperation with the European Association for Banking and Financial History. I am also delighted to have this event, together with yesterday’s workshop on the “Digital rebirth of historical datasets”, taking place in Sofia alongside the annual meeting of the Association. This year marks twenty years since the Bulgarian National Bank became a member of the Association; this is the first time, however, that an annual meeting and events of the Association are hosted in Bulgaria. Let me, therefore, extend words of gratitude for the excellent cooperation with the Association regarding the organisation of this series of events. The Bulgarian National Bank is one of the oldest central banks in the world, thirteenth by order of its establishment in 1879. Our institution has understandably cultivated a profound respect for banking and financial history, as seen from our topical publications and research projects we take part in. For us history is also vibrantly present today – exactly twenty-five years ago, 1 July 1997 was the day of introduction of the currency board in Bulgaria.

Our currency board has been operating smoothly ever since, over various economic and financial cycles in both good and bad times, proving the cornerstone of monetary, financial and macroeconomic stability in Bulgaria’s most recent history. We can make an assessment that the currency board is the most successful time consistent policy commitment regime for achieving price stability that we have had since the restoration of the Bulgarian state. Our currency board is an undisputed success story. Historically, however, the Bulgarian National Bank has engaged in a number of monetary policy regimes. Notably monetary unions – the focus of the conference today – have repeatedly appeared as centres of gravity. In the late nineteenth century Bulgaria adhered to the Latin Monetary Union by means of unilateral commitment to its principles. In the second half of the twentieth century Bulgaria was part of the Comecon (the Communist Bloc’s Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) where a common international currency evolved to serve international payments between the participating members. At the turn of the last century the newly created euro replaced the Deutsche Mark as the reserve currency of the currency board in Bulgaria. To sum up, our own experience is part of the global history of alternating monetary policy regimes. It motivates our interest in both the history and future of monetary unions. As central bankers we do look forward to the papers and discussions today, since the historical perspectives therein should also bring out rather relevant contemporary insights for policy.
It is clearly the case of the last few years with the rapid development of credit derivatives, securitization, hedge funds and private banking that has led to a situation where most credit risk are no longer in the form of loans, held to maturity on the balance sheets of banks, but where much of the credit risk is now held by nonbank financial institutions that can take on substantial leverage. It has occured in Europe in the context of a major financial innovation, the introduction of the Euro, and poses new challenges for central bankers: it makes monetary analysis more complex, modifies the monetary policy transmission mechanisms and, in some cases, may endanger financial stability. 1  Weber, 2006; Rajan and Zingales, 1998  2  Dynan, Elmendorf and Sichel, 2006  3  Cecchetti, Flores-Lagunes and Krause, 2006  4  Campbell and Horovitz, 2005  5  IMF, 2006  BIS Review 42/2007  1  1. Financial innovation is a challenge for the interpretation of developments in the monetary aggregates and for the best use of our second pillar  It is clearly not a surprise, at a time of burgeoning financial innovation to observe signs of instability in money demand. New products and new intermediaries tend to blur the distinction between monetary and non-monetary assets and to modify the financial behaviour of economic agents.

One example of this enhanced impact is provided by the behaviour of hedge funds who customarily borrow short-term funds to finance their (longer-term) investments 9 . -  Turning to the exchange rate channel, financial innovation results in greater integration of domestic and international financial markets, which should also strengthen the exchange rate channel as exchange rates become more sensitive to interest rate differentials between currency areas. This has been illustrated by the recent debate about cross-border carry trades 10 . -  At the same time, financial innovation has probably weakened the credit channel 11 . Several phenomena may be at play : •  Financial innovation gives firms broader access to securities markets, which may reduce information asymmetries at the source of the credit channel. 7  BIS, 1994  8  Noyer, 2001  9  Weber, 2007  10  Weber, 2007  11  BIS, 1994; Thornton, 1994  BIS Review 42/2007  3  •  More specifically, securitisation by banks has reduced their liquidity constraints and thus further weakened the credit channel. A recently published research paper by the New York Fed, using a micro data set of individual loans granted by a sample of banks between 1997 and 2005, shows that the use of credit derivatives is associated with a greater supply of newly negotiated loans extended to large corporate borrowers. Previous research has generally found that banks have used earlier credit market innovations such as loan sales and securitisation to diversify credit risk exposures and increase lending.
Central banks instituted huge asset purchase programs and brought short-term interest rates to near zero—in some cases below zero—to stimulate economic recovery. The good news is that, for the most part, monetary policy did its job. Advanced economies have seen steady growth and significant declines in unemployment. But the recovery has been slow. And despite low unemployment, inflation rates have been running persistently below central banks’ goals. The Federal Reserve, like many central banks, has a goal of keeping inflation at 2 percent. In the pre-2008 era, inflation was a major concern for the public and central banks alike. And, while I will always be vigilant about inflation that’s too high, inflation that’s too low is now a more pressing problem. The experience of a slow recovery and persistently low inflation is a symptom of deeper problems afflicting advanced economies. Two changes, unrelated to the crisis, have been taking place, causing a shift in economic conditions and quietly shaping the trajectories of advanced economies. These are the “the facts” that have changed. Today I’m going to discuss them in more detail, and explore our options for dealing with the challenges they present. “The Facts” Shifts in demographics and productivity growth have fundamentally altered the economic environment in which we operate. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  Starting with demographics, two changes have taken place: People are generally living longer, and population growth is slowing. Dwindling birth rates are bringing population growth to a standstill.

The economic environment in which we operate today is a direct consequence of the demographic and productivity shifts taking place. Low neutral interest rates are very real, and they’re here to stay. Conclusion The facts have changed, and so it is time to change our minds also. It is often said that change is hard. But, experience teaches us that it is better to prepare for the future than wait too long. Ultimately, failure to prepare often means preparation for failure. 1 United Nations, World Populations Prospects: Key Findings and Advance Tables, 2015 Revision. 2 Antonin Bergeaud, Gilbert Cette, and Rémy Lecat, Productivity Trends in Advanced Countries between 1890 and  2012, Review of Income and Wealth, Volume 62, Issue 3, pp. 420–44, September 2016. 3 Shigeaki Fujiwara, Yuto Iwasaki, Ichiro Muto, Kenji Nishizaki, and Nao Sudo Fujiwara, Developments in the  Natural Rate of Interest in Japan, Bank of Japan Review, October 2016; Kathryn Holston, Thomas Laubach, and John C. Williams, Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest: International Trends and Determinants, Journal of International Economics, Volume 108, Supp. 1, pp. S59-S75, May 2017. 4 Thomas M. Mertens and John C. Williams, Tying Down the Anchor: Monetary Policy Rules and the Lower Bound  on Interest Rates, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Working Paper Series, May 2019.
It imposes only one restriction: non-residents may not borrow $ for activities unrelated to the Singapore economy, though they may buy and sell as much $ as they wish. This restriction on borrowing $ is to make it harder for non-residents to accumulate ammunition through borrowing for a speculative attack on the $ Despite the non-internationalisation policy, there is virtually complete capital mobility in Singapore. Empirical studies have shown that domestic $ interest rates are almost entirely determined by parity with offshore US Dollar interest rates, adjusted for future exchange rate expectations. In economist’s jargon, the “interest parity condition” holds. The role of hedge funds in the Asian crisis is controversial. There is evidence that the hedge funds were active in a number of the regional currencies before and during the crisis. Although some observers are convinced that hedge funds were the main culprits in bringing currencies down, the evidence is not conclusive. Nevertheless, we believe that our policy of non-internationalisation helped to protect the $ against excessive volatility during this unstable period. Of course the policy could not have been effective if Singapore’s economic fundamentals had not been sound, and if we had not had a floating exchange rate which could be managed flexibly in line with these fundamentals. We had an easier ride than Hong Kong, which also had a sound economy, but whose currency was, for good reasons, pegged to the US dollar.

Therefore we moved last year to open up the Singapore market further to foreign banks. We hoped that this would spur efficiency and innovation among the local banks, and push well-run banks to seek scale and expand at home and abroad. We were convinced that unless we opened up, this transformation would never take place. There is no substitute for real competition. We did not want the liberalisation to weaken our banks and destabilise the financial system. So we are not taking a big bang, laissez faire approach. Instead, we are phasing the liberalisation over five years, and opening the market to financially strong, committed foreign players. At the same time, we are motivating the local banks to strengthen themselves. We have raised disclosure standards to international norms, and we now require banks to publish details of their nonperforming loans and inner reserves, which were previously closely guarded secrets. We are also raising corporate governance standards, which lie at the heart of the improvements required in Asian banking systems. We instituted nominating committees on bank boards, comprising a majority of independent directors. Their remit is to ensure that persons appointed to the boards and  BIS Review 76/2000  8  to key executive positions are selected for their expertise, and their ability to contribute to the bank and to the interest of all shareholders. Most important of all, we are requiring the banking groups to make a clear separation between their financial and non-financial businesses.
The role of quality, and its inter-relationships with operational aspects of a service organisation has been expressed in what has been described as the “service-profit chain” as follows: (i) profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty; (ii) loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction; (iii) satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers; (iv) value is created by satisfied, loyal and productive employees; (v) employee satisfaction results primarily from high-quality support services and policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers. Superior insights on customer needs will be an important advantage. This will involve recognising the diverse needs of the different customer segments. There is now already a discernable change in the pattern of customer behaviour. There is now an increasing shift towards a customer base that has less need for the standard distribution systems for most banking services. “If you build it, they will come” used to be the by-word for domestic banking institutions. A new branch would naturally attract new customers. Now, while customer relationship is of vital importance, these needs to be addressed in the context of the needs of the younger customers for retail services who do not want the “inconvenience” of a branch. The preference is for services as much as possible over the telephone, ATM or Internet. Writing cheques has become an inconvenience. This new generation of customers have their own ideas of what a bank should be and successful banks need to respond to this change.

Anita Angelovska-Bezoska: Ministerial Dialogue on the Economic Reform Programmes of the Candidate Countries Speech by Ms Anita Angelovska-Bezoska, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the Ministerial Dialogue on the Economic Reform Programmes of the Candidate Countries, Brussels, 25 May 2018. * * * Dear Ministers, Dear representatives of the European Commission, European Central Bank and Eurostat, It is my great pleasure to join you on the regular Ministerial Dialogue. At the beginning, let me express our gratitude to the ECB, European Commission and Eurostat for their assessment of our Economic Reform Programme that outlines the ongoing, as well as forthcoming mediumterm reform priorities aimed at more competitive, flexible and resilient economy. Herewith, we appreciate the positive assessment of the monetary policy as well as the recommendation to continue “to conduct monetary policy consistent with the exchange rate peg, using available scope within this framework in line with safeguarding price stability” which is completely in line with central bank views on monetary policy strategic framework. In light of today’s thematic discussion on fiscal sectors reforms, we would like to express our support for the Ministry of Finance’s reforms oriented towards strengthening Public Finance Management system that besides improving the effectiveness of the use of public resources, will also foster the ongoing fiscal consolidation process.