samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We have taken the view that such fine-tuning is an unnecessary complication at this stage. If the MPC want to undertake further purchases, it would be straightforward to simply buy more gilts financed by issuing commercial bank reserves. 10  It was important that the gilts were not lent against cash, as that would have undone some of the intended impact of the initial asset purchases. 11  The 3 month commercial paper purchased had nearly all matured by the end of the programme, and had already been largely replaced by additional gilt purchases. 12  The cumulated dividends are not the profits on the portfolio, even before funding costs. Depending on such factors as the yield curves at the date of issue and purchase, and the maturity of the gilts; the dividends and market prices of the gilts are connected. See the DMO website for more information on changes in gilt prices: http://www.dmo.gov.uk/documentview.aspx?docname=publications/investorsguides/pig201204.pdf&page=in vestor_guide/Guide. 4  BIS Review 135/2010  Eventual exit strategy At this time, it is not clear whether the next step with the asset purchase programme is most likely to be to sell the assets back or to buy more. The Bank is prepared for either but it might be particularly helpful to set out in advance a few thoughts on the eventual exit strategy. After purchasing £ of assets in just under a year, the MPC paused its programme of asset purchases in February 2010.

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.
The FOMC has said that it will keep short term interest rates at exceptionally low levels for an extended period of time. The Fed also retains large amounts of mortgage-backed bonds acquired in order to support the housing market and help bring down mortgage and other long-term interest rates to the historically low rates in place today. The FOMC and the Chairman have stated their commitment to take further actions to bring interest rates down further should economic conditions warrant. In a recent speech, I said that both the current levels of unemployment and inflation and the timeframe over which they are likely to return to levels consistent with our mandate are unacceptable. I said that I thought further Fed action was likely to be warranted unless the economic outlook were to evolve in a way that made me more confident we would see better outcomes for both employment and inflation before too long. Turning to regulatory policy, the biggest lesson of the financial crisis is that severe financial disruptions can inflict very large and persistent costs on people’s lives and jobs. Over the past year, with Fed leadership and support, important new regulatory initiatives have been advanced to create a global financial system where the players cannot slide back into the risky “business as usual” that created this crisis. These include the recent agreement with international bank regulators (sometimes called “Basel III”) to impose stricter standards for globally active banks and the considerable regulatory changes embodied in the Dodd-Frank Act.

The today initiative is a significant event, to sustain the growth of financing for this vital part of the economy and it will help to soften the negative impacts of the world economy slowdown. I encourage the banking system and the other players of the market to undertake similar initiatives in order to not impede the financing of small projects, which owns the possibility to be transformed into profitable enterprises. At the same time to maintain a stable and long-term progress of the country, in line with its European aspirations, the banking system should go on the way toward the perfection of service versus the clients, the intensification of communication and public education. Bank of Albania believes that the sources of the stable growth for the mid-term and long-term period consist not only on the encouragement of the work productivity increase or of the investments in industry and construction, but also in other strategic sectors. For the Albanian economy as a developing economy, domestic investments and foreign direct investments in strategic sectors as tourism and infrastructure shall be a real foundation to the economic growth. The positive chain effects are expected to be reflected on the preservation of the steady growth rhythms. Hence, the overall macroeconomic stability will be seen as a precondition in promoting the further intensification of the domestic and foreign investments.
However, although we are not the source of the turmoil, it now has a considerable impact even on the Swedish financial system. Several parts of the credit market are not working as well as usual. For example, due to uncertainty among investors we have seen a sharp increase in demand for Swedish government securities and a corresponding decrease in demand for mortgage bonds. As we know, this development caused the Swedish National Debt Office to auction extra treasury bills and use the money to buy mortgage bonds. The uncertainty has also had an impact on those markets where the banks borrow money, as it has become more difficult to borrow over longer time periods, and on the international markets. Even if the major Swedish banks are lending to each other, international investors are less willing to invest, which has reduced the supply of loans and driven up the banks' cost of borrowing. However, I would like to point out that higher borrowing costs do not mean that the banks have problems (in the sense that their financial situation is threatened). It is true that the Icelandic bank Kaupthing's Swedish subsidiary did suffer from an acute liquidity need due to developments on Iceland and was forced to turn to the Riksbank. However, the major Swedish banks do not have – nor have they had – any of the liquidity problems that Kaupthing and banks in other countries have had.

Thank you! 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
It might have been somewhat more extreme this time around, but it wasn’t fundamentally different. 2. The rise and fall of three cross-border banks operating on the basis of EU legislation (the European “passport”). This story was much more unique, as it involved the first banking crisis in Europe since the EU single market was formed in the early 1990s. The combined balance sheet of these banks was 10 times Iceland’s GDP, and their combined bankruptcy, measured by the size of balance sheets, ranks third in size in the international history of corporate failures. And this happened in a country that ranks among the smallest in the world! We are still dealing with the repercussions of it, as can be seen in our overblown and unbalanced IIP and the controls on capital outflows. Before the collapse, the banking system had expanded very rapidly, growing in just five years from a combined balance sheet of less than 2 times GDP at the end of 2003 to the  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  aforementioned 10 times GDP. Most of this expansion was cross-border, and a significant part of it was really off-border, having little to do with Iceland, as both financing and investment took place abroad. Around two-thirds of the balance sheet of the three crossborder banks was denominated in foreign currency. As is typical for banks, the FX part of the balance sheet had a significant maturity mismatch.

In Malaysia, the progress in this area has been facilitated by the common law which forms the foundation of the legal system. More specifically, the concept of "trust" under the common law has facilitated the issuance of Islamic securities such as sukuk and Islamic Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Since "trust" as an inherent notion embedded in the common law system is not generally found in the jurisprudence of civil law, some civil law countries have enacted specific legislation to provide for the introduction of trust so as to align their legal systems with the requirements of Islamic finance. The challenges brought by the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system While legal issues within a domestic financial system can be resolved by the home regulators and Shariah authorities, the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system brings with it many challenges. There is a need for mutual recognition of financial standards and products across jurisdictions. The progressive harmonisation of Shariah, in this respect, needs to be viewed as a driver towards greater international financial integration. Such a convergence and harmonisation can only happen with greater engagement among the regulators, practitioners and scholars in Islamic finance in the international community. The Annual International Shariah Scholars' Dialogue that has been taking place since 2005 is aimed at achieving this objective. This Dialogue has served to promote interactions between Shariah scholars from around the world contributing towards greater understanding and international convergence.
Lim Hng Kiang: Towards a new era of growing connectivity between Asia and the Middle East Opening address by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry and Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the 2nd World Islamic Banking Conference: Asia Summit 2011, Singapore, 8 June 2011. *  *  *  Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Introduction 1. I am honoured to be invited to deliver the opening address at the 2nd World Islamic Banking Conference: Asia Summit (WIBC Asia). I would like to extend a warm welcome to our overseas guests, especially our distinguished speakers who will be sharing their insights during this conference. Growing connectivity between Asia and the Middle East 2. Despite the recent spate of shocks, the world economy has been resilient with growth projected to moderate slightly to 4.5%1, compared to 5.8% last year. Downside risks such as high energy and commodity prices, the European debt crises, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Japan tragedy have not substantially derailed the economic momentum. 3. Asia is expected to remain the main locomotive driving economic growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects Asia’s growth to reach almost 7% this year, led mainly by China at 9.6% and India at 8.2%. Asia has been, and will still be the key engine for global trade. In 2009, the region accounted for 35% of world exports, up sharply from 25% a decade earlier2.

Ball, L. and N. Sheridan (2005), “Does Inflation Targeting Matter?” in B. Bernanke and M. Woodford (eds. ), The Inflation-Targeting Debate, University of Chicago Press. Blanchard, O. and J. Gali (2007), “The Macroeconomic Effects of Oil Price Shocks: Why are the 2000s so different from the 1970s?” Working Paper Series N°13368, NBER. Blanchard, O. and J. Simon (2001), “The Long and Large Decline in US Output Volatility,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, (1) pp. 135-164. Bernanke, B. (2004), “The Great Moderation”, remarks by the Governor at the meetings of the Eastern Economic Association, Washington, DC. Betancour, C., J. De Gregorio and J. Medina (2008), “The Great Moderation and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism in Chile,” BIS Papers No. 35, Bank of International Settlements, pp. 159-178. Cavallo, E. (2007), “Output Volatility and Openness to Trade: A Reassessment”, Working Paper No.604, Inter-American Development Bank. Cecchetti, S., A. Flores-Lagunes, and S. Krause (2005), “Sources of Changes in the Volatility of Real Growth,” in C. Kent and D. Norman (eds. ), The Changing Nature of the Business Cycle, Proceedings of a Conference held at the H. C. Coombs Centre for Financial Studies, Reserve Bank of Australia. De Gregorio, J. (2007), “Defining Inflation Targets, the Policy Horizon and the OutputInflation Tradeoff,” Working Paper N°415, Central Bank of Chile. De Gregorio, J., O. Landerretche and C. Neilson (2007), “Another Pass-Through Bites the Dust? Oil Prices and Inflation,” Economía, Volume 7, Number 2, Spring, pp. 155-196.
The EMEAP Group believes that ABF2 will promote the development of index bond funds in the regional markets. We are also working with our ASEAN counterpart on an investors seminar to take place later in the year to raise global awareness of our capital markets. The treasury industry continued to grow robustly. Foreign exchange and credit trading activities were underpinned by market volatility and a slew of bond issuance in Asia. To support the broad-based growth in the financial services sector, much attention was placed over the past year on manpower and skills development. The Financial Sector Manpower Conversion scheme, launched recently, will contribute to ensuring a ready supply of skilled manpower in relevant growth areas. V  Playing a more active role in the international arena  Over the last year, we have continued our active role in regional cooperation, formulation of international regulatory standards, and active dialogue with our regional and international counterparts. This reflects our recognition of the importance of closer cooperation in a highly interconnected global market. These efforts are also in keeping with Singapore’s role as an international financial centre. 2  BIS Review 43/2004  We work closely with our ASEAN counterparts to speed up financial sector liberalisation in the region. Beyond ASEAN, we are actively involved in EMEAP. Last week, we successfully hosted the EMEAP Governors’ Meeting as well as the first EMEAP-Eurosystem high-level seminar.

I would like to urge that, in searching for labor market solution, attention must also be paid to the problems of the wage structure, since at the going wage, price mechanism and its signaling function do not work efficiently enough to clear the labor market to eliminate this skill mismatch. Related issue is that of a long stall in labor productivity as well as overall productivity growth. Policy distortions and a lack of clear policy directions can discourage firms from accumulating physical capital and investing in innovation, and prevent workers from moving to higher value-added sector. For example, agricultural price subsidy measures, while serving their redistributive purposes, may inadvertently channel workers away from highly productive manufacturing to agricultural sector, thus contributing to lower overall productivity of the economy. At the same time, low public spending on R&D and insufficient protection of intellectual property rights may deter innovative entrepreneurship and hinder a transformation towards a knowledge-based economy. Good news is, the risk of a sustained growth slowdown could be reduced or even avoided, as success of some mature economies in Asia have shown in the past. This will depend crucially on the quality and the timeliness of public policies across a wide spectrum in tackling these long-term issues. To be sure the task is not going to be easy. Reorienting the country’s growth strategy to focus more on skills development, innovation, and productivity involves deliberate planning over relatively long stretch of time. Three principles are of the essence: visionary leadership, consistency, and continuity.
Nevertheless, the word “uniform” might sound a little strange to us today, when we prefer to use softer terms such as “convergence”. But of course Mr Delors was not thinking about uniformity of the services themselves, but rather about the need to ensure that they could be offered and accessed on an equal basis across the EU. But what it is remarkable is that Mr Delors was referring to the steps that should be taken in Stage One of EMU. He expected the integrated financial market to be in place at the beginning of the EMU process, before going to the subsequent stages. Almost seventeen years have passed since Stage One was launched. And we entered Stage Three almost eight years ago. EMU has proved to be a successful reality, but the single financial area as defined in the Delors Report has not yet been fully achieved. Of course, there has been impressive progress in some areas, for instance, the European money markets. And there has been good progress in others, like corporate bond markets and Government bond markets. In some fields, however, we are a long way from Mr Delors’ vision of integration. Looking at stock exchanges, for instance, we have certainly witnessed a decrease in the home country bias in investor portfolios. But the overall level of home country bias remains high, indicating that a significant degree of fragmentation remains. And progress has been very limited in the retail financial services sector, where the cross-border provision of services is still almost symbolic.

But apart from our interest in the effective transmission of monetary policy, there is a broader reason why central banks wish to see greater integration. At the end of the day, the ultimate objective of a central bank, as of any public policy maker, is to enhance citizen welfare. A number of pieces of empirical evidence reveal that financial integration has a positive effect on economic growth and, therefore, on welfare. The European Commission, London Economics and several researchers have provided us with interesting studies which estimate that a total removal of national barriers in European financial markets would imply a long-term increase in GDP growth of up to one percentage point. There is also evidence for the US, based on analysis of the effects of the removal of restrictions on cross-state bank branching and ownership, which points in the same direction. These two aspects – monetary policy transmission and promoting citizen welfare - explain the efforts that central banks have made to contribute to the integration process, although the leading roles and initiatives rightly correspond to the European Commission and to market forces. Maybe the most telling example of the central bank contribution is the establishment of TARGET, promoted by the Eurosystem and introduced at the beginning of Stage Three with the aim of integrating the system of large value payments across the euro area. It is widely recognised that its success has played a crucial role in the integration of interbank markets in Europe.
It is equally important that an equally high level of security be provided for all elements of financial services. Information security in dealings with external suppliers is becoming increasingly critical. The technological vulnerabilities that arise when different technologies are integrated can make it easier for fraudsters to access data. Unfortunately, we can also provide a recent example of this. Therefore, banks should not be reluctant to control compliance by your suppliers and suppliers of services for you, and should not shy away from setting cybersecurity requirements. There is a standard for this. The Bank of Russia issued it in 2018. Compliance with it must now be taken especially seriously. 6/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  We will continue to develop supervision in cyber security. We also plan to develop the practice of conducting cyber drills, i.e., stress testing of information security. The purpose of such tests is to understand whether an organisation can identify a potential attack, quickly identify it, localise it, and eliminate the consequences — and, ultimately, to understand how such an attack could affect the organisation’s financial stability. Our task is protecting customers’ funds. As for the joint infrastructure solutions that Mr Aksakov spoke about, we are ready to discuss them further, including why we do not currently see proposals by the market itself to create such systems for collective use, and we are ready to participate and see what the Bank of Russia can do.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we launched a preferential refinancing programme for banks lending to SMEs. Now Mr Aksakov has suggested that we review these decisions. But I would like to remind you that we needed to ensure that small businesses had access to funding as fast as possible during the pandemic. 409 billion rubles were taken out of the limit. But I would like to say that this program will be phased out gradually over the course of a year. However, at the same time, we are extending the operation of this instrument (it will be possible to obtain preferential refinancing until September 30). Why? Because rate cuts after the transition to a loose monetary policy and measures of government support for SMEs bring about sufficient lending potential in this segment. It really was a rapid-response anti-crisis measure. How do borrowers feel now? The restructuring programmes have helped them withstand the shock of Q2. Undoubtedly, it is important to understand that some borrowers may not cope with the repercussions of the epidemic, and we can see that banks have already been carefully evaluating borrowers’ business and loans have been available for more efficient businesses. And despite the stress, there has not been significant loan impairment as was the case in 2014– 2015. The share of non-performing and bad loans in H1 2020 in the corporate portfolio increased slightly (by 0.1 p.p. to 11.1%).