samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
•  In 1996, the Bank of Zambia attempted to jumpstart secondary market trading in Government securities by restricting the primary issues of Government securities to commercial banks. It was expected that commercial banks would take up the role of market-making. This did not materialize with most commercial banks preferring to buy and hold the securities until maturity. Consequently, authorities were obliged to re-open the primary market to other non-bank investors. •  Further, since 1998, Government bonds have been listed for trading at the Lusaka Stock Exchange. The benefits have not been realised despite the fact that all banks are registered as brokers in this respect. I am sure the LUSE will provide you with more detail on this as you deliberate. •  More recently, the Government and the Bank of Zambia in 2006, with the support of DIFID and the World Bank undertook a study tour of selected emerging markets in Africa and Asia. The aim of this tour was to learn the actual workings of well functioning government securities markets. Technical information was collected and a report prepared. Once the recommendations in that report have been adopted, I expect that these will complement your own efforts to activate secondary market trading. I am aware that the successful development of a secondary market needs a reliable and efficient settlement infrastructure. This is important for it addresses the concern that is normally raised on the possibilities of settlement risk.

You may wish to know that the Bank of  2  BIS Review 26/2008  Zambia and the Lusaka Stock Exchange are already engaged to develop an efficient settlement stream within the RTGS payments system. It is my belief that once this initiative has been fully developed, settlement risk will be reduced and more credibility will be added to securities trading. Chairperson, I know there are still formidable challenges in building a vibrant secondary market. Hence, in my concluding remarks, let me reiterate what I said earlier; that setting the primary market off the ground has been a challenging task. To set up secondary markets is even a more challenging task. Yet it is not an impossible one. With the participation of every stakeholder, the challenges that seemingly look insurmountable can easily be overcome. We all know that the development of a vibrant secondary market for securities is necessary. When I look at all of you gathered here this morning, I see a determined optimism that we can get there. Each and every one of us has a role to play, be it Government, corporate institutions, or indeed a small investor. On our part as Bank of Zambia, you can rest assured that we will continue doing our part in facilitating the development of this market. Thank you very much and I wish you a very successful workshop. BIS Review 26/2008  3
As such, those emerging in Europe have looked beyond incumbent providers: new entrants and commercial bank providers of clearing and settlement services have featured strongly in their plans. Such providers not only aim to meet demands in terms of flexibility and cost, but also to offer sufficient breadth to deliver a multicurrency clearing and settlement service. Globalisation, regulatory change and the market structure of infrastructure 28 This is part of a general reshaping of the infrastructural landscape in a global market place. Market participants are becoming increasingly international, operating in multiple markets and facing obligations in multiple currencies. Latest international banking data from the Bank for International Settlements revealed growth in excess of 20% in reporting banks’ total cross-border claims in the year to end-Q1 2007, taking the total to $ 29 Banks, therefore, seek infrastructural solutions that will accommodate the international organisation of their businesses. So, while, historically, financial infrastructure has typically evolved along national lines, cross-border alliances and mergers are now more common, both in trading and post-trade: e.g., NYSE Euronext; LCH.Clearnet; Euroclear Group. And alliances in the form of cross-border clearing and settlement links are also widespread, enabling, for instance, securities traded in Italy to be settled and held in an account in the securities settlement system in Germany. 30 Commercial bank providers – namely, correspondent banks and global custodians – may be best placed to meet the demand for multicurrency settlement, leveraging their extensive international connections. This could then reinforce their important position in the infrastructural landscape.

These changes present several challenges for central banks and regulators: •  We need to establish and apply consistent criteria for the scope of oversight, in order to maintain a level regulatory playing field;  •  We need to take full account of new interdependencies between systems when assessing financial stability risks at a national and international level;  •  We need to work more closely together in risk assessment and oversight and ensure that cross-border operational arrangements are robust ;  •  We need to ensure that financial stability risks posed by financial firms operating key infrastructure functions are adequately captured in their regulation. 49 Meeting these challenges will deliver a robust, resilient financial infrastructure, which the global financial system and the global economy depend upon. BIS Review 130/2007  7
Risk Management During the Pandemic Crisis Now, I'd like to share how our risk management practices and culture have helped us manage challenges throughout the pandemic crisis at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In mid-March of 2020, the health crisis was especially severe in the New York City area, where our main office is located and where most of our employees live. To protect the health and safety of all employees and to continue our critical activities, we had to adapt to a situation none of us had ever seen before. That started with changing how we worked. To reduce the health risks to our employees, we only allowed staff who had to be onsite to remain in the office, while everyone else worked remotely. For example, some open market operations, cash services, and technology support activities could only be conducted on location. To protect onsite staff, we implemented a range of protective measures including masking, social distancing, quarantine requirements, and staggered work schedules. Another priority was helping employees cope with added responsibilities like lack of childcare and elder care, so we provided as much flexibility as possible to staff to manage their time. On the technology side, we had an immediate need for teleconferencing bandwidth to support remote work. While not all technology worked perfectly right away, our technology providers quickly adjusted. With most staff working from home, a new risk we identified and addressed was the failure of home internet connectivity.

In response to these conditions, the Federal Reserve System took action to support a strong economy and a stable financial system.9 As part of this effort, pandemic crisis facilities were established to restore market functioning and support the flow of credit to households, businesses, and state and local governments.10 The New York Fed was responsible for operating five of these facilities.11 Risk management was a cornerstone of that work, and we used our three-lines-of-defense risk model to build strong risk management into facility operations.12 The first line of defense, the facilities teams, were responsible for understanding and managing their risks. The second line – my group (the Risk Group), the Compliance Function, and others – was responsible for independent assessment and oversight of those risks. And, the third line – our Internal Audit Group – was responsible for fully independent assurance. Just to give a bit more detail about the second line of defense, we are responsible for designing and delivering a set of products, services, and relationships that lead to better plans, decisions, and actions that help the Bank thrive in any environment. We serve as trusted risk advisors, independent risk experts, and enterprise risk guardians.13 In our guardian role, we identify material risk issues and make sure that risks are understood, communicated, and addressed. We provide the stakeholders who are ultimately responsible for organizational success with a clear picture of the Bank's risk profile. In our expert role, we provide independent risk assessments, actionable risk insights, standards, and tools to help businesses manage risks.
Our sukuk market in particular has come a long way since the issuance of the first global sovereign sukuk by Malaysian Government in 2002. Today, it has evolved into the world’s largest Islamic bond market, accounting for more than fifty percent of global sukuk issuances in the first half of 2010. It has attracted the participation of various foreign corporations, multinational corporations and multilateral agencies in raising funds and investing in issuances out of Malaysia. In the latest development, Japan’s biggest brokerage house has recently listed its first US Dollar sukuk on Bursa Malaysia. The strength and competitiveness of our sukuk market in bridging and strengthening financial linkages thus best encapsulates Malaysia’s evolving role as an important international gateway in Islamic finance, particularly in linking the two most dynamic growth regions of South East Asia and the Middle East. Malaysia is committed to, and extensively engaged in, strengthening linkages across borders through Islamic finance. This emerging role is a natural progression of Malaysia’s leadership evolution in driving growth and innovation in the industry. Benefiting from our domestic experience, where we have come to recognize the strength and benefit of Islamic finance early on, Malaysia has taken a proactive role in supporting and contributing to the development of Islamic finance on the global front. We offer a welldeveloped and complete platform for the global financial community to participate in Islamic finance through the development of Malaysia as an international Islamic financial centre (MIFC).

Much of this reflects the inevitable correction of exuberance on the part of borrowers and lenders, the conditions for which were created by the failure to tackle the global imbalances that left most major countries with unsustainable exchange rates, unsustainable paths of consumption, saving and borrowing, and unsustainably low long-term real interest rates. Our economy too needs to rebalance as it recovers, and that affects the pace of recovery. Although the downturn in UK GDP from the peak in 2008 to the trough in 2009, at around 6%, was broadly similar to that in most other industrialised countries, our recovery has been noticeably slower, with a cumulative rise in output from the middle of 2009 of only about 3½% compared with 6% or more in many other countries. But has the process of recovery and rebalancing been derailed or merely delayed? With the right prescription we can ensure that it has been only delayed. Three factors in particular have adversely affected the pace of recovery in the UK. The first is an especially deep and protracted squeeze on the level of many people’s real take-home pay. Over the past four years, money wages have on average been rising at less than 2% a year. And higher energy and food prices, as well as tax changes and a lower exchange rate, passing through to the level of consumer prices, have all contributed to the squeeze. On average, real take-home pay is no higher than back in 2004.
Even within the EU, where directives are used to implement Basel 3, some member states opted to allow regulators to 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  6  implement these directives. Another example is on the insurance side, where some extremely detailed and highly technical actuarial material has ended up in EU legislation as part of Solvency 2 rather than being left to regulators. And in general the EU approach contrasts with that of the UK, where Acts of Parliament are usually used for overarching changes to the institutional framework and many of the details are then delegated to regulators, who are vigorously held to account for their activities by Parliament. Another place in which this bites is in relation to smaller firms, which are often subject to the entire rulebook when in some cases safety and soundness might be better served by a simpler (simpler, not weaker) approach. None of this is to advocate a wholesale re-write of existing, on-shored rules and regulations – to my mind the question is more about what style we adopt for future regulations. Why is the EU approach different? Many others have provided answers that question3. Emphasis is sometimes put on the differing legal traditions in EU countries, which – it is sometimes argued – in aggregate tends to lead to a norm of greater and more detailed specification in EU legislation than tends to result from the UK’s approach.

But – thankfully for all of us – we live in a democracy, and so a system of independent regulation can only work if the regulators are properly accountable, in particular to Parliament. So much for principles. In practice, where might these lead to for a post-Brexit system of financial regulation in the UK? One possibility is: nowhere! This could arise in several ways, but one comes immediately to mind – a scenario in which our future relationship with the EU takes a form that means we stick with a system which looks exactly like what we have today. There is no reason to be very alarmed by this prospect – it is not ideal but we have largely shaped that system through our membership of the EU and we make it work well currently. However, this would be undesirable if it came with the prospect of becoming a rule-taker in financial services with all the risks – both prudential, and as a matter of industrial policy – that entails. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  4  But let us toy briefly with the idea that the Government and Parliament decide to adopt a style of financial services regulation built on the six principles set out above, or something like them. What, in practice, would this style look like? To step back one pace, you can consider the style of different bits of financial regulation in the UK as being at different points along a spectrum1.
Real GDP growth has decelerated in 2018 compared with the growth we have seen since the second half of 2014. This slowdown mainly reflects weakness in net trade. Looking forward, global protectionism and weakening conditions in emerging markets represent further downside risks to growth. Internally, the present low savings rate of Spanish households and the need to restore savings in the near term, points to moderation in consumption going forward. Let me point to the three main challenges that the Spanish economy is facing at present, in my view. The first relates to the process of fiscal consolidation. While well advanced, it is still incomplete. The government deficit ratio is still the highest in the EU and it needs to be further reduced to bring the government debt ratio on to a downward path. In fact, adequate buffers need to be rebuilt now, in times of solid growth and favourable financing conditions. This would enable fiscal policy to support the economy in the event of any future shock. Secondly, unemployment remains very high, as does the share of temporary employment. Spain’s unemployment rate remains well above pre-crisis levels and is roughly the double of the euro area rate. This situation calls for further reforms to address the duality of the labour market and more effective active labour market policies to re-integrate young people and the long-term unemployed. Finally, productivity remains low and needs to be raised to maintain economic growth and enable sustainable wage growth.

But in order to ensure that sufficient monetary policy stimulus continues to support the further buildup of headline inflation that we see in our projections, the Governing Council decided: to enhance our forward guidance on the likely future path of our policy interest rates, expressing our expectation that they will remain at their present levels at least through the summer of 2019, and in any case for as long as necessary to ensure the continued convergence of inflation towards our aim; and to re-assert our intention to continue to re-invest the principal payments from maturing securities in our portfolio for an extended period of time after the end of our net asset purchases, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation. These measures will continue to provide the necessary degree of monetary policy accommodation to bring inflation back towards a level that is below, but close to, 2%. Let me now turn to the Spanish economy. Following the severe recession in 2008-09 and 2012-13, Spain’s economic recovery has been strong, with five years of growth since 2013. During this time, the economy has expanded by an estimated 14% and the level of GDP is now above its pre-crisis peak. This strong recovery reflects substantial policy efforts at both national and European level, particularly the reforms initiated at the height of the sovereign debt crisis. Under the EU financial assistance programme, numerous measures and reforms were undertaken to strengthen the banking system.
By its nature, trend following amplifies the imbalance that may at some point affect a market, potentially leading to vicious circles of price adjustment and liquidation of positions. Moreover, increasing numbers of participants are able to access financial markets directly, while the expertise to deal with a wide range of technical information is not evenly distributed. This may also reinforce the role of “gurus”. Index management, as a fund management technique, has proven very popular on equity markets and may have contributed to exacerbating fluctuations in financial asset prices. Because their goal is to mimic the performance of indices, “passive managers” constantly strive to match the composition of their benchmark. They thus help to amplify market trends, buying more as the market rises and increasingly liquidating as the market drops. It can be argued that index funds distort the prices of the targeted indices and that, as a result, the indices end up creating rather than measuring performance. The impact of risk management techniques on market dynamics is particularly enlightening with regard to the question of asset price overshooting. Value-at-risk calculations have become a crucial element  13  Leading indicators of currency crisis in emerging countries - BURKART, COUDERT - Notes d’Etude et de Recherche Banque de France - 2000. 6  BIS Review 2/2003  of the standard approach used by market participants to evaluate the risk inherent in their market activities and to set up exposure limits. Of course, central banks and financial institutions should continue to encourage the use of these instruments.

How should we think about moral hazard and the long term effect of the use of the Federal Reserve's Section 13(3) powers on the evolution of financial markets and the economy, as well as official sector responses to future economic crises? In responding to a crisis, how should the official sector best calibrate its lending response through the central bank, compared to its spending response through the fiscal authorities? And, in an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic, where should decisions about the allocation of resources in the economy rest? If independence is prized in allocating emergency aid, should there be a new, independent agency with responsibility for economic investment?23 These are interesting theoretical questions. In practice, however, the Federal Reserve is what Congress has made it. Its coordination with Treasury and its administration of economic relief proceed as Congress has directed. Looking Ahead I would like to leave you with some observations on challenges still ahead of us—in the near term, medium term, and long term. Near-term challenges—those arising within the next twelve months—are many. To manage them, I commend to you Martin Wolf's advice: "Above all, make sure we get through this. That is our chief aim. "24 Like many of you, I have confronted new legal and compliance questions arising from a remote workforce, and have had to balance new priorities against ongoing commitments. To get through this, we have to do both. We have to walk and chew gum at the same time.
The ESRB noted at the September meeting the progressive drying-up of bank term funding markets, and that the availability of US dollar funding to EU banks also had decreased significantly. In Sweden, we have, for some time now, highlighted the risk of Swedish banks’ reliance on short-term funding in foreign currency. The Riksbank’s stress tests indicate that the Swedish banks have a good capacity to handle bigger loan losses, but that they take somewhat larger liquidity risks than many other European banks. Lending in foreign currency The ESRB has also looked into the risk stemming from lending in foreign currencies to unhedged borrowers. This risk has been highlighted by recent fluctuations of some currencies and the potential impact on unhedged household’s capacity to repay loans taken out in foreign currency. In view of this, the ESRB has developed policy proposals targeting credit, liquidity and funding risks, as well as the risk of miss-pricing loans. In Hungary and Austria problems related to foreign exchange lending have become acute due to the appreciation of the Swiss franc. In Sweden, we have experience from excessive foreign-currency lending, both from excesses in Sweden in the 1990s and, more recently, from the Swedish banks’ foreign currency lending in the Baltic States. Challenges – to define the concept of macro-prudential supervision The ESRB is still a new body and it will take some time before it has fully settled in to its work.

The Riksbank’s assignment from the Riksdag requires that we do what we can to ensure this. BIS Review 99/2000  4