samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Howard Lee: Hong Kong as a platform for structured credit Keynote address by Mr Howard Lee, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the 2021 Asian Structured Credit Virtual Summit, 16 March 2021. * * * Susie (Cheung, Co-Convenor of APSA), Jade (Friedensohn, Managing Director of IMN), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 1. Good morning everyone. My great thanks to IMN for inviting me to speak at this year’s Asian Structured Credit Virtual Summit. It is a great forum to connect global structured credit issuers and investors. 2. As we all know, structured credit has been a very important source of financing for many years, especially in places like the US and Europe. While the Mainland of China is a relative late-comer, it is catching up fast and has become a very big market in its own right. However, depending on the structure of their financial markets, not all jurisdictions rely on structured credit to the same extent. For example, in Hong Kong, the banking sector, together with the bond and equities markets, remain the primary sources of corporate financing. 3. Indeed banks in Hong Kong are very liquid. With an average Liquidity Coverage Ratio standing at 155%, there is not a strong desire among banks to sell or securitise their loan portfolios to obtain extra liquidity.

Enhancing resilience in payments Speech given by Victoria Cleland, Executive Director; Banking, Payments & Innovation  PayExpo, London 8 October 2019  With thanks to Samantha Leighton and James Sanders for their assistance in preparing this speech. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  It is a pleasure to be speaking at PayExpo at the Business Design Centre in Islington today, in an agenda packed with innovation and technological advance. I lived in Islington when I first moved to London, which had the great benefit of enabling me to walk to work. I now live further afield, but I am able to make the journey in similar time benefitting from advancements in new(er) technology – a bicycle! It is also a pleasure to be speaking at a second major payments event in London in a month, following hot on the heels of SIBOS in late September. This demonstrates the importance of London, and the UK, as a hub for payment innovation and fintech more widely. In the second quarter of 2019 funding for fintech companies topped $ growing 24% quarter-on-quarter1 – just one sign of a thriving industry.
These attributes are a prerequisite for a vibrant international financial system and are supportive to global trade. A regime with many reserve currencies would imply a well-governed international economy. This should facilitate global investment, resulting in rising productivity growth and improving standards of living. In other words, I don’t see this as a zero-sum game. If other countries’ currencies emerge to gain stature as reserve currencies, it is not obvious to me that the United States loses. This is assuming, of course, that the emergence of alternatives is being driven by their progress, rather than by the U.S. doing a poorer job in satisfying the attributes that I discussed earlier. Having more countries achieve the stature of having a reserve currency may also be desirable for other reasons. First, with more reserve currencies available, portfolio diversification opportunities are enhanced. This is desirable because, all else equal, it would allow investors to move further out on the risk/return frontier. Second, more currencies are likely to be close substitutes, which could dampen currency volatility. With many viable reserve currencies available, no particular one would necessarily have to bear the bulk of any adjustment. The dollar’s dominant reserve currency status has sometimes been referred to as the United States’ “exorbitant privilege,” implying that the U.S. benefits extraordinarily from this privileged status. I’d argue that the situation is much more nuanced. Yes, this status does allow the U.S. to benefit from seigniorage. More than half of all U.S. currency outstanding is held abroad.

This is the most important contribution monetary policy can make to sound economic developments in the long term. Low and stable inflation provides the economy with a nominal anchor. This contributes to predictability for those taking decisions about saving and investment today, although the result depends on how the economy develops in the future. In addition, we will seek to prevent unduly wide fluctuations in output and employment in the short and medium term. In the long term, output in an economy is determined by the supply of labour, capital and technology. Monetary policy influences the economy with long and variable lags. This means we must look ahead when setting interest rates. I would therefore like to comment briefly on our assessment for the next three years, based on the analyses in the most recent Inflation Report, published in June (Inflation Report 2/05). The Norwegian economy is in an upturn and is now expanding at a brisk pace. Inflation remains low, but has edged up since last year. The risk of a fall in the level of prices and  3/7  markedly lower inflation expectations has diminished. At the same time, there appears to be little risk that inflation will rapidly move up to a level that is too high. The interest rate reductions through 2003 and into 2004 have resulted in low real interest rates. For a period, the real interest rate has been considerably lower than normal. The low level of interest rates is supporting the high activity level in the Norwegian economy.
In my view, that should continue for the next few years, even if structural unemployment begins to rise: the latter is a relatively slow process. Given the inflation outturns so far in 2011 and the prospects for nearterm inflation outlined in the May Inflation Report, the squeeze on household real incomes is likely to be intensifying in the short term. Overall, it could be quite some time before we start to see rising real take-home pay. The marked decline in household confidence since the start of the crisis might also have played a role in the weakness of consumer spending during 2010. For a given level of income, households may decide to spend less (and hence save more) if they are uncertain about the outlook for the economy and, especially, about the security of their job. Although survey measures suggest that households’ unemployment expectations have fallen slightly,  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  the fiscal consolidation now underway might encourage greater precautionary savings among some households – indeed, the MPC has been, to some extent, incorporating such an effect in its projections for over a year. The worry now is that consumer confidence has fallen back a second time: a forward looking measure derived from the GfK survey is close to its trough of mid-2008 (Chart 8).

We at the Bank of Thailand believe in the pursuit of 1  United Nations. “Our Common Future: World Commission on Environment and Development.” 1987. 1/6  sustainability, that it can be achieved if we maintain our focus on long-term goals. The past year we have seen many welcoming developments in our financial sector. These include, First, a number of measures were introduced to improve financial institutions’ responsibility, such as regulations on credit cards and personal loans to address the issue of household debt, new regulatory framework on market conduct, regulations to enhance financial institution’s corporate governance, and a new code of conduct for banks developed by the banking community; Second, the debt clinic was set up to facilitate multi-creditor debt settlement for indebted individuals so that they can exit from the state of perpetual debt distress; and Third, a number of key financial infrastructures were established to help promote financial inclusion and transition the Thai economy towards the digital era. One in particular is the introduction of PromptPay, which provides efficient access to electronic payment at no cost and has served as a catalyst leading to complete elimination of electronic fund transfer fee by banks. These developments have contributed to efficiency improvement in the financial system; wider access and affordability of financial services, especially to those underserved; and mitigation of the impacts of several long-term issues. Essentially, they help ensure that our financial system can sustainably serve the well-being of the Thai people.
Jean-Claude Trichet: The Euro - a major structural reform of the European economy Speech by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor of the Banque de France, at the NIKKEI Euro Symposium, London, 5 November 2001. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and an honour for me to be speaking here today, at the Nikkei Euro Symposium, in front of such a distinguished audience. I am particularly pleased to express my views on the euro and its prospects following the launch of the notes and coins, which will be a reality within 8 weeks The economic and financial ties between Europe and Japan have been strengthened significantly over the recent period : European investors and companies have stepped up their market presence in Japan these last two years ; likewise, Japanese foreign direct investments in the Euro area and Japanese portfolio investments in euro since January 1999 have highlighted the confidence in the European single currency. I would like to explain why the euro and Monetary Union have been successful from the outset, and the conditions and prospects for building on this achievement. I will then discuss the historical event of the introduction of banknotes and coins at the end of this year. I. The euro and Monetary union are based on a credible monetary policy, and contribute to an APPROPRIATE economic and monetary equilibrium in Europe  1.

The euro deepens and completes the single market  a)  The euro makes the completion of the single market possible. It enables the productive sector and companies to achieve significant economies of scale, and all European savings to be allocated to the most efficient investments. It also enhances the transparency of the market and boosts competition and innovation to the benefit of consumers. However, the ultimate objective of the single market could not be fully achieved while monetary barriers continued to prevent the free flow of goods, services and capital by imposing unpredictable and erratic exchange rate movements and transaction costs. The last step in this process will be the euro cash changeover at the end of this year; it will enable not only companies but all our citizens to enjoy all the benefits of using the same monetary instrument throughout Europe, just like Americans do today with the dollar throughout the United States. b)  Moreover, the introduction of the euro brings about a significant change in the economic and financial environment. The introduction of the euro has been a strong catalyst for mergers and acquisitions in the euro area. The European M&A market has been in 2000 one of the most dynamic in the world with operations totalling around one trillion euro. The single monetary policy encourages structural changes in the financial sector, in both the euro area money market and longer-term capital markets. This gives euro area investors greater possibilities and improved financing and investment conditions.
At present - with continued low interest rates abroad and a close link between domestic interest rates and the krone - a tighter monetary policy would restrain credit demand primarily because job security would be reduced as a result of a stronger krone. House prices and developments in household credit influence consumption and housing investment. We seek to take account of these indirect effects in interest-rate setting. A turnaround has occurred in the Norwegian economy. The economy has experienced a soft landing after the long period of high cost inflation in Norway and sluggish external activity. •  Output has returned to trend and is now showing a marked rise. •  Employment has returned to trend and is rising. •  Unemployment is at the 1996-level and is equal to the average for the 1990s. •  Wage growth is broadly in line with a level that is consistent with the inflation target given normal productivity growth. •  Overall credit growth is balanced. Credit is expanding approximately in line with trend growth in nominal GDP. •  Labour costs in Norway relative to our trading partners are now broadly in line with a long-term average. •  The nominal krone exchange rate is on a par with the average for the 1990s. •  The interest rate level is close to the level prevailing among our trading partners. •  Inflation expectations are approximately the same as the target.

The North-West and Sogn og Fjordane: In the North-West, there are still only a few contacts that report an increase in employment. Most companies can increase activity by 10-15 per cent without altering their workforce. Retail trade and construction are the only sectors that report an increase in employment. Construction companies  4  BIS Review 61/2004  report some signs of labour market tightness, due in part to the start-up of work on the Ormen Lange project. The use of foreign contract labour in connection with seasonal work in the fish processing industry, the hotel sector, tourism and the engineering industry is increasing. Growth in household demand, petroleum investment and increased activity in the business sector are paving the way for a rise in employment in the period ahead. On the other hand, intensified competition and continued rationalisation in the business sector may have a dampening impact on labour demand. Developments in real economic variables are mirrored in credit markets. In recent years, household income has shown solid growth, and household confidence has been high. Corporate earnings, however, have been low, and until recently companies have primarily focused on enhancing efficiency. Total credit growth is rising approximately on a par with GDP growth. The composition of credit growth in the past year, however, has given ambiguous signals to our interest-rate setting. Growth in household borrowing is high, while growth in corporate borrowing is low. Developments in corporate borrowing shadow developments in corporate investment. Household debt has increased sharply since 1994.
BIS Review 102/2007  7  Let us assume that capital depreciation is fairly constant. We can then expect parallel movements in house prices and rents and in user costs, if expectations concerning long-term interest rates and real house price inflation are stable. But actual house prices have doubled since the latter half of the 1990s in relation to the rise in house rents in the consumer price index. Between 50 and 70 per cent of this change is probably ascribable to a fall in the expected level of real interest rates. Viewed over the past 5-10 years, the expectation as to what a neutral real interest rate is may have fallen by close to 2 percentage points. This may be because expectations concerning future inflation in our economy and the world economy have become far more stable, with a smaller inflation premium on the real interest rate, and because we are in a period with unusually ample flows of savings from Asian and oil-producing countries, which have driven down interest rates. At the same time, house price inflation expectations have been high in recent years. Such expectations will push down user costs, and hence rents. As a result, we must expect some difference between developments in house rents and house prices in periods. Rents can lag behind to a fairly large extent during an upturn, and only pick up when house price inflation expectations stagnate or fall. In Norway, the number of rental properties is small in relation to the total stock of housing.

With economic indicators below expectations since April, long-term yields fell back to their mid-2001 level. The expectations reflected in the futures markets concerning the development of money market rates – and therefore also monetary policy – have undergone a marked downward adjustment, notably for the US dollar, but also for the euro and the Swiss franc. Hopes of a vigorous and rapid economic recovery have given way to a more realistic assessment. The SNB as asset manager In the context of its statutory mandate, the National Bank manages sizeable assets (table 1). In May 2002, their market value exceeded Sfr 100 billion. The free assets (Sfr 21 billion) are to be withdrawn from the National Bank and allocated to other purposes. Mr Blattner will provide details on the management of the free assets. The monetary assets (Sfr 86 billion) serve monetary purposes. Claims from repo business (Sfr 16 billion) reflect our money market activities on the assets side of the balance sheet, while Swiss franc securities (Sfr 5 billion) are available for absorption repos if necessary. Foreign exchange reserves (Sfr 41 billion) are at the centre of our activity as asset managers. At the end of 1997, the leeway  BIS Review 39/2002  1  previously granted solely for money market investments was legally extended. This provided a possibility to spread fixed-interest investments more evenly across various maturities and currencies and to widen the range of instruments.
Subsidiarisation of systemically-important foreign banks Local banks are required to maintain a minimum of $ in paid-up capital and meet MAS' capital adequacy ratio requirements to ensure that they have adequate resources to support and expand their operations. MAS’ requirement of a minimum of 8 percent Tier I capital and 12 percent Tier I plus Tier II capital exceeds the international standards set by the Basel Capital Accord. However, QFBs and foreign banks can operate as branches, and accept retail deposits without any paid-up capital in Singapore. This has led local banks to complain that the playing field was tilted against them. It was tenable in the past when individual foreign banks had a small share of the domestic market and we placed greater reliance on the home supervisor. But as we open up further, we need to make sure that the prudential safeguards that apply to foreign banks are commensurate with their increased role in the retail deposit market. MAS is considering requiring systemically-important foreign banks with a large retail presence to subsidiarise their operations in Singapore. This means that the foreign bank will have to incorporate in Singapore and meet MAS' minimum paid-up capital of $ as well as MAS’ CAR requirements. Subsidiarisation will provide greater clarity and certainty in supervision. A subsidiary is a separate legal entity from the parent. It will have its own assets and will have to maintain its own capital.

A quarter century ago, a typical estimate of the neutral rate in the United States was 2 or 2½ percent—consistent with historical averages over the preceding half century. Since then, however, there has been a clear downward trend in neutral interest rates in the United States and other advanced economies, with current estimates ranging from 0 to 1½ percent.2 Three main global trends appear to account for the bulk of the decline in the neutral rate over the past quarter century. 3 One is demographics: populations are aging as people live longer and birth rates have fallen. The second is productivity growth, which has slowed around the world. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  The third is the heightened demand for safe and liquid assets, which has led to a wider wedge between yields on safe government securities or central bank reserves and yields on riskier assets such as corporate bonds. Importantly, the onset of these trends preceded the global financial crisis and they have continued even as countries have recovered. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty about the neutral rate, and conditions may change, a reasonable assumption is that it will remain low— not far from current levels—for the foreseeable future.4 What does a low neutral rate mean for monetary policy and the anchoring of inflation expectations? When a recession hits, central banks may not be able to reduce interest rates well below their neutral level to stimulate the economy as warranted because of the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates.
Third, the authorities have ruled that banks may effectively use the capital buffers available to absorb unexpected losses. It has also been announced that banks will have a lengthy period for the subsequent reconstruction of these buffers, in the event they are used. Fourth, the European financial authorities, including the Banco de España, have recommended that banks temporarily eliminate dividend payouts and that they apply prudent criteria in the variable remuneration of their staff. The aim is to channel the resources generated towards strengthening their capital positions. These measures will be reviewed before the end of the year. In any event, however, banks’ dividend payout and staff remuneration policy should continue to be highly prudent until the current uncertainty clears and a sound economic recovery takes root. Fifth, there has been a regulatory reform of capital requirements (known as Quick Fix). The fix includes permanent measures, such as adapting the SME support factor in the calculation of risk-weighted assets, and temporary measures, such as the application of a prudential filter to changes in the value of sovereign debt instruments. As a result, banks’ shock-absorption capacity has been enhanced and, in turn, assistance has been given to financing to firms and to the investments that may be most affected.

It is also important that we retain flexibility in the execution of our programme during this longer period to avert any financial fragmentation problems associated, for example, with the aforementioned heterogenous effects of the crisis. The ultimate goal of all this is to fulfil our price stability mandate, always understood in a symmetrical manner. European prudential policy As regards financial prudential policy, the European authorities with prudential competencies – the ECB, the European Banking Authority, the European Systemic Risk Board and the Single Resolution Board (SRB) – have adopted numerous decisions during this crisis. Their principal aim is that the financial system should contribute to overcoming the crisis. The decisions have been taken in coordination with the national and international authorities (the Banco de España in Spain’s case and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), respectively). It should be stressed that the improvements made by the banking sector in the past decade to the quality of its balance sheet and insolvency levels have left it better placed to absorb this crisis and to continue providing the financing the economy needs. In this respect, I would highlight the effect of the far-reaching international financial reform. So far, the reform has allowed the financial system to act as a mitigating as opposed to an amplifying factor of the impact of this crisis. This should remind us of the importance of having a sound banking sector, shored up by prudent global regulatory standards.