samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
While there are signs of household debt being deleveraged, as reflected by a continuous decline in the ratio of household debt to GDP which fell from 79.0 percent in 2016 to 77.5 percent by the end of last year, debt burden remains high especially for lower-income households. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been talking about factors behind the uneven economic performance of the last few years. Going forward, the economic recovery is expected to be more broad-based and I want to highlight a few of these positive developments. First, export growth, our main growth driver, is becoming more broad-based as growth has now extended beyond larger players. In fact, export growth rate of SMEs 3/10  has become more or less on par with that of larger firms. Domestic demand is also gaining traction with a steady growth in private consumption, and a pickup in private investment since the third quarter of last year especially from imports of capital goods. Second, the government has directly stepped up various stimulus measures to support the rural economy. Last year, the government introduced the supplementary budget with a particular focus on local infrastructure development, and the Welfare Card Scheme which aimed to support daily expenditures among poorer households. This year, the new supplementary budget is allocated to vocational training as part of the second phase of the Welfare Card Scheme, development of local community enterprises, as well as water resource development to improve productivity within the agricultural sector.

Another initiative of the Bank of Thailand to promote digital payment services is the Thai standard QR code for payment. The Standardized QR Code makes epayment seamless across platforms regardless of which bank or non-bank service provider merchants and consumers are using. In just eight months since its implementations, more than two million merchants in Thailand now accept epayment through QR code, and this figure will continue to grow. Having a common standard for QR code will indeed generate benefits beyond payment convenience. The common standard will help ensure that no incumbent service providers has an advantage of locking merchants with their QR formats, and allow new and innovative payment service providers to easily enter the market. The standard will also help facilitate the move towards information-based lending for SMEs as their payment transaction information can be consolidated. Given that the payment standard was developed together with five global credit card companies using EMVCo, it could serve as a platform to enhance financial connectivity in the region. Thai banks and payment service providers have begun to work with partners in our neighboring countries to facilitate cross-border payments using the standardized QR code. This standardized QR code was a product that went through the Bank of Thailand’s regulatory sandbox. Going forward, there are a few high-impact 7/10  technologies or applications which are being developed and tested in the Bank of Thailand’s regulatory sandbox. The first one is an extension of our standardized QR code to include other means of payment, including credit card.
Ravi Menon: Remarks on the MAS Annual Report Remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the MAS Annual Report 2020/2021, Virtual Media Conference, 30 June 2021. * * * Good morning and thank you for joining us today. GLOBAL ECONOMY The global economy is recovering from last year’s deep recession. The recovery is characterised by three key features: It has been a dual-speed recovery. The recovery is likely to gather momentum. But there are notable downside risks. First, the dual-speed recovery. The world’s two largest economies and Singapore’s two main trading partners – the US and China – are witnessing strong rebounds. According to consensus forecasts 1 , the US economy is expected to grow by 6.7% this year from last year’s 3.5% contraction, and China by 8.7% compared to 2.3% in 2020. The recovery in Europe has been more modest. Policy support has been on a smaller scale than in the US, and a renewed wave of infections in March and April has held the economy back. But economies are re-opening and pent-up demand is starting to flow through. In South East Asia, the recovery has been impacted by a resurgence in COVID-19 infections of varying intensities. The weighted average of ASEAN-52 manufacturing PMIs 3 fell to 51.7 in May, from 53.1 in April, even as the global index strengthened. The impact on services has been greater with the tightening of mobility restrictions. Second, a firmer global recovery is expected in the second half of 2021.

This was largely offset by a negative currency translation effect of $ billion, mainly due to the strengthening of the Singapore Dollar against the US Dollar and Japanese Yen. For the financial year, MAS made a net profit of $ billion. This was after: deducting $ billion of expenses for domestic money market and other operations; and contributing $ billion to the Government’s Consolidated Fund, as payment in lieu of corporate income tax. MAS will return half of the profits, or $ billion to the Government and the remainder will be added to MAS’ reserves. MAS 50th ANNIVERSARY This year marks MAS’ 50th anniversary. We will be commemorating this milestone with a series of activities later this year, to reflect on the journey we have taken and to thank all our partners who have walked with us and 8/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  helped us on this journey. We will provide more details of the activities at a later date. Like the rest of Singapore, MAS has come a long way.
Let me now highlight some challenges to be globally faced by banks and supervisors in implementation of Basel III:   Firstly, Base III has substantially raised the quality, quantity and international consistency of capital and liquidity. The new rules are aimed at strengthening of capital and risk management in banks. This may require banks to inject high quality fresh capital, preserve existing capital by limiting the payout of dividends and bonuses, realize efficiency gains, and mobilize liquidity from new sources in certain jurisdictions to meet additional capital and liquidity requirements. This would be a major challenge for some internationally active banks, particularly under present market conditions;    Secondly, internationally active banks facing major capital shortfalls will have to revisit their business strategies on global presence and expansion plans. They might be required to take some tough decisions on exiting from certain locations or considering merger and consolidation of their affiliates and subsidiaries;    Thirdly, implementation of Basel III will require banks to assess their existing capacity on estimation of additional capital and liquidity requirements. This may also require some banks to make additional investment in systems and procedures to build-up their capacity;    Fourthly, new capital and liquidity rules are conceptually and technically very demanding.

On the other hand, the concerns that were raised about the sustainability of the currency peg system deepened the lack of confidence further and the Turkish authorities decided to allow the lira to float freely on 22 February 2000, in order to avoid further damage in the economy. It is interesting to note here that, the turbulences occurred in November 2000 and in February 2001 differ from each other as regards their starting points. The crisis in November 2000 was started by the banks’ failure to meet financial obligations, and then was followed by a liquidity crisis that increased pressure on exchange rates. On the other hand, the crisis in February 2001 directly manifested itself as a direct attack to domestic currency, with the increased financial vulnerability after November 2000. An analysis of the fundamental reasons behind the failure of the disinflation program implemented in 2000 reveals that the problems in the banking system should have been resolved well before the implementation of the program. It was natural that, pursuing a monetary policy similar to a currency board, forced the Central Bank to pay less attention to the liquidity needs of financial markets compared to previous years. Moreover, this practice reduced the flexibility of the monetary policy against external shocks. The continuation of problems in banking sector in 2000 put pressure on the rule-based monetary policy based on rule.
Everything that I have mentioned about digital infrastructure and connectivity is well within the capacity of Africa to achieve. In fact, you have a unique opportunity to leapfrog legacy systems and vested interests, and build a modern digital economy and society, from the ground up on a clean slate. This room is filled with innovators, investors, business leaders, and policy makers from around the continent. Together, you can shape a future where technology and finance  2/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  converge to create a more prosperous, vibrant, and inclusive Africa. Thank you. 3/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches

Households and businesses didn’t have a great deal of choice and opportunity when it came to finance. But look at what’s happened in the past ten years. As banks have been made safer and mechanisms put in place to deal with them if they fail, the too-big-to-fail public subsidy for banks has fallen by 90%.17 It’s therefore no accident that our banking system is now more diverse. In the past year, for example, banks other than the big six have accounted for more than half of new lending to households and all of the net lending by banks to UK businesses. And it’s no accident that our financial system is more diverse. On net, all of the growth of credit to businesses since the crisis has been centred in non-bank forms of debt finance. The lesson: reforms that promote stability can unlock opportunity for the system to serve the economy by levelling the financial playing field. That lesson applies now to our work on climate risks. Our primary aim is to ensure the system is resilient. But by forcing the system to measure, disclose and confront future risks, we could unlock the opportunity for finance to help the economy in its transition to carbon neutrality. See speech by Mark Carney (April 2017): ‘What a Difference a Decade Makes‘.
The VA is another explicitly countercyclical element of Solvency II that aims to mitigate the effect of exaggerations of bond spreads. Chart 3 shows the UK VA plotted against UK corporate bond spreads. From the end of 2019, the VA more than tripled to its peak of 50 basis points in March, coinciding with a rapid rise in credit spreads. As you can see, though, the increase in the VA, while large relative to its historical level, isn’t as large as the increase in corporate bond spreads. As spreads have moderated in the last few weeks the VA has also declined, though it still remains elevated by historical standards. As a result, while the VA provided some cushion against the rise in spreads, a significant amount of the market stress would have been passed through to insurers’ balance sheets. The final Solvency II measure that I would mention is the ladder of intervention, a tool we have yet to deploy in this crisis. This allows an insurer that fails to meet its SCR some time to work with the regulator to find a solution to restore their compliance with the SCR. We therefore see this as an additional tool to promote the safety and soundness of UK insurers and to protect policyholders by avoiding a “cliff-edge” effect of a winding-up. Life beyond Solvency II: some lessons learned from Covid-19  We will learn from the EIOPA 2020 review post Solvency II implementation. We will also learn a lot from this crisis.

The Swedish National Debt Office then carried out extra issues of treasury bills and provided loans through reverse repos in covered mortgage bonds. At the same time, the Riksbank expanded its list of approved forms of collateral. All in all, this meant that in principle the government assumed the risk that lay in the outstanding stock of Swedish mortgage loans. In order to convert borrowing in foreign currencies to lending in Swedish kronor without taking a currency risk, the banks usually conduct currency swaps. In simple terms, this is done like this: A Swedish bank borrows euros in Germany at a maturity of five years. However, as the bank does not really need the euros but needs kronor to fund mortgage loans to Swedish households, the bank has to exchange the euros for kronor. To protect itself against the currency risk, the bank enters into a currency swap in which the euros are exchanged for kronor today under an agreement to exchange the kronor back to euro at a predetermined rate in five years’ time. In this way the bank matches the currencies of its assets (the mortgages) and its liabilities and thereby eliminates the currency risk. The Swedish banks are thus dependent on acquiring kronor in the long-term from a counterparty in a currency swap. They can in principle do this in three ways: through a foreign bank, another Swedish bank or an insurance company. Today, it is often a foreign bank that acts as the counterparty in these swaps.
Cecilia Skingsley: Experience with macroprudential policies Summary of a speech by Ms Cecilia Skingsley, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at a workshop arranged by the Committee on the Global Financial System, BIS, held at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong, 10 August 2015. *  *  *  Since the global financial crisis, several countries have started implementing macroprudential policies. This workshop has provided us with the opportunity to deepen our knowledge regarding how different countries choose, calibrate and implement different kinds of macroprudential instrument. We have also gained a greater understanding of the efficiency of these instruments, as well as of how different countries incorporate macroprudential settings in the calibration of monetary policy. Although we have come a long way the past few years as regards setting up institutional frameworks and developing tools, macroprudential policy is still a relatively new policy field in many countries and there are many important issues that need to be addressed. I would like to elaborate on three of these issues. The first is the challenge of determining the proper mix of policy instruments and the right balance between them, and deciding how fast and resolute our actions should be when imbalances are building up. For example, on the one hand, we know from international experience that credit growth can be difficult to curb once it starts accelerating. This would speak in favour of prompt and strong measures.

Finally, in the past few years, macroprudential tools have been developed to tackle risk stemming from the traditional banking sector. Macroprudential policy has thus mainly been implemented as a form of banking regulation. As a consequence, resilience in that sector has increased. But, on the other hand, the non-banking sector is increasing rapidly and so, most likely, is risks related to it. This being my third and final issue, I think it is most important that we increase our understanding of these changing trends and the risks they entail, and that we start developing macroprudential instruments that can counteract these risks. In order not to fall behind the curve, work on developing new tools should start promptly, as it will take years before such instruments can be in place at national levels. 1  See also Skingsley, C., (2015), Inflation-targeting policy after the financial crisis, speech at Almega, Stockholm 2015. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1
The MPC’s remit is broadly the same today – it aims to return inflation to the 2% target while avoiding unnecessary economic costs. Another critical event was the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which had similarly fundamental implications for the Bank. One lasting image of that crisis is of queues outside branches of a high street bank – Northern Rock. I worked on the Bank’s response – providing liquidity support to Northern Rock as depositors withdrew their cash. In the event that was just the beginning of the crisis. One year later, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers had defaulted and confidence in the financial system had collapsed. As a consequence we saw a credit crunch and economic costs on a huge scale. There were many lessons learned from the GFC. One was that monetary stability is not a sufficient condition for financial stability – more was needed. We needed macroeconomic policymakers to take account of ‘systemic risks’ in the financial system. That means understanding that total risks in the system might be larger than the sum of their parts. Why? Because these risks can amplify each other, particularly in times of stress, and as they do so can harm economic growth. In the UK,  Page 3  this realisation led to the creation of a new committee with clear responsibility for the stability of the financial system as a whole – the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) on which I sit today. The FPC’s primary objective is to pursue financial stability.

This general constellation of market conditions and asset prices is unusual, at least in comparison to what we have seen over the past several decades. This has been a distinguishing feature of the present expansion, but it is not something we fully understand, and we cannot be confident in judgments about how durable it will prove to be. To a significant extent, these financial developments reflect a high degree of confidence in future macroeconomic and financial stability, reinforced by the improvements in inflation performance, growth outcomes and financial resilience of the past several years. Better monetary policy has lowered expectations of future inflation and inflation volatility and has contributed to lower risk premiums in general. Changes in the cyclical behavior of financial  BIS Review 2/2007  1  intermediation and credit provision, coupled with the increased stability of the real economy, seem likely to have reinforced the improvements on the monetary policy front. And rapid growth in the major emerging market economies, together with the substantial earnings of energy-producing and commodity-exporting countries, have produced a substantial increase in wealth and savings relative to perceived investment opportunities. In a world where capital can now flow much more freely across national borders, a significant portion of these savings has moved across national borders. These are powerful and fundamental forces, and they certainly help explain the broad reduction in risk premiums and the substantial demand for credit risk and financial assets. There are other factors at work as well, however, that have less favorable implications.
Furthermore, in a paper money system where the central bank has been entrusted with the exclusive right to issue banknotes, there is a particularly pronounced incentive for the state to cover its spending by printing money. Page 5/8  strategies accordingly and if regulation is focused on stability. This also reduces the likelihood of the central bank having to step in as lender of last resort, that is to say providing solvent banks with liquidity in crisis situations if they can no longer raise funds on the market. Is the Swiss franc sound money? And so we come to today’s key question: is the Swiss franc sound money or not? The fact is that the level of prices in Switzerland has never been more stable – and the Swiss franc’s ability to retain value thus never higher – than in the past twenty years. And also over a longer-term perspective, the Swiss franc displays an exceptional ability to retain value by international comparison (cf. chart 2). What are the reasons for this? The solidity of the Swiss franc is attributable on the one hand to the strength of the Swiss economy, and on the other hand to the stability of Switzerland’s state institutions. The SNB is one of these institutions. Swiss central bank money has retained its value because the law guarantees the SNB’s independence and gives it an unequivocal mandate to ensure price stability while taking due account of economic developments.

Added to this, public finances are in good shape as far as debt is concerned, which reduces the political pressure on the SNB. The value of bank deposits in Switzerland is stable because the value of its central bank money is stable, because the banks are operating prudently, and because the regulation of the banking system is centred on stability. The strong capital base and high liquidity of the banks in Switzerland increase the resilience of the system in times of crisis and promote confidence among depositors. Both of these factors contribute to bank deposits retaining their value. Current monetary policy and the role of central bank balance sheets Our findings are therefore rather reassuring. In Switzerland, central bank money and bank deposits are essentially sound money. However, there is no guarantee that this will always be the case. Or, to put it in somewhat more pointed terms: will the expansionary monetary policy that the SNB has been following for some years jeopardise the solidity of the Swiss franc in the future? Issuing too much central bank money can indeed undermine the foundations of sound money, especially if the money is created to solve political or structural problems. However, the unprecedented expansion in the monetary base in recent years does not pose a particular threat to the stability of the Swiss franc’s value.