samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In sum, a lot of work remains to be done both in the near- and in the medium-term. These perspectives underpins the agenda of today’s Seminar, which we have organized around two panels. A first panel, on Short-term Challenges towards a Complete EMU, will discuss the reform agenda that is feasible to pursue in the current European parliamentary cycle (until 2019). 4/5  In a second panel, on Long-term Prospects for a Cohesive EMU, we would like to address the medium- to long-run steps necessary to increase the euro area’s capacity to prevent crisis and to manage them. Finally, Economy Minister Ramón Escolano will close the Seminar explaining the strategic vision underlining the recent proposals on EMU architecture articulated by the Spanish government. The proposals constitute, in my view, a politically realistic program to advance the process of governance reform in the short-term without losing sight of the longer-term needs. The final goal being providing the EMU with a more solid institutional framework that help ensure the prosperity and well-being of euro area citizens and improve the public perception of the integration project. Now, according to the agenda, I give the floor to the moderator of the first panel, Paloma Marín. 5/5

There are three ways we can achieve this: The first is by enhancing offshore RMB liquidity. As mentioned earlier, the HKMA’s currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China was enhanced in July. Apart from the overall increase in the size and removal of the need for renewal of the swap agreement, on the back of this, the HKMA enhanced its RMB Liquidity Facility, and the important changes include: Expansion of both intraday and overnight repos from RMB10 billion to RMB20 billion each, providing an additional RMB20 billion in liquidity to the market; Extension of the overnight repo operating hours from 6 pm to 5 am the next day (when the RMB RTGS system closes), making operation more flexible and streamlined, especially for those in other time zones; and Reduction of repo rates of the overnight repo, with the spread over CNH HIBOR lowered from 50 to 25 basis points. We will constantly monitor the need for further enhancements to keep RMB liquidity in Hong Kong at the optimal level. The second approach is to facilitate the development of more diverse offshore RMB products. The expansion and enhancement of the Connect schemes to promote the cross-boundary use of the RMB and facilitate further portfolio flows into and out of the Mainland is crucial. Southbound Trading under Bond Connect and Wealth Management Connect have created new opportunities for investors and increased the usage of the RMB in capital markets and wealth management. We will consider enhancements to Southbound Bond Connect to enrich Hong Kong’s bond market.
Philipp M Hildebrand: Major challenges facing the Swiss National Bank Speech by Mr Philipp M Hildebrand, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the General Meeting of Shareholders of the Swiss National Bank, Berne, 30 April 2010. *  *  *  Mr President of the Bank Council Dear Shareholders Dear Guests I. The recession has run its course  A little over a year ago, we were still in the midst of the worst financial crisis in post-war history. True, we were able to discern the first tentative signs that the tide might be turning, but the outcome was still highly uncertain. Today, the worst is behind us. We can look to the future with a measure of optimism. Yet the challenges that the crisis has left in its wake are still substantial. While 2008 will go down in history as an annus horribilis for the financial markets, 2009 was dominated by the gloomy economic environment. The global economy contracted for the first time since the Second World War. The huge loss of confidence on financial markets in autumn 2008 caused economic activity to nosedive. Indeed, one of the most striking features of this recession was the speed and severity with which economic growth dropped in a number of countries.

Malaysia is honoured to host the Islamic Financial Services Board and is committed to the development of a sound. Islamic financial services industry. Ladies and Gentlemen: Islamic banking and finance is ascending to greater prominence in the global financial system and has fast extended beyond the traditional predominantly Muslim economies to major industrial economies. This growing significance is a manifestation of the viability of Islamic banking as a financial intermediation channel that supports economic growth and development of nations. While it was initially developed to fulfill the needs of the Muslims, Islamic banking and finance has now gained universal acceptance. The appreciation of its promising potential has prompted interest amongst conventional financial institutions to venture into this fast expanding market. In essence, Islamic banking and finance can expect to evolve into an increasingly important component of the global financial system. At the heart of this expansion, emerged the need for the development of the regulatory dimension to explicitly address the unique features of Islamic banking and finance. At present, Islamic financial institutions have, to a large extent, been governed by the conventional regulatory framework, reinforced by the Shari'ah framework and Islamic accounting standards. However, Islamic finance is distinct from conventional financial activities in terms of its underlying philosophy on the prohibition of interest, which in turn shapes the nature of its financial transactions, and its risk attributes. A separate regulatory framework therefore needs to be developed in view of the unique risks in Islamic financial transactions to provide for their effective assessment and management.
The reform of the financial legislation and its framework in line with that in other European states has facilitated the export of financial services by Icelandic financial institutions and the establishment of operations abroad. You will hear more about this process from the next speaker, Director Sigurdur Einarsson. Foreign direct investment regulations are now liberal with the most important exception that such investment is not permitted in the fishing sector. Foreign direct investment is most noticeable in power intensive industries, such as the production of aluminium, which is based on Iceland’s abundance of renewable energy resources. Recent changes in corporate taxation in Iceland, lowering them to among the lowest to be found, serve to attract foreign business to Iceland and encourage Icelandic companies with international operations to favour Iceland as the base of their operations. Director Garðar Ingvarsson will probably give you more detail on this later this afternoon. Direct investment by Icelandic companies abroad has risen rapidly in recent years and in a variety of areas, such as fisheries and fish processing, pharmaceuticals, retail commerce and as mentioned earlier, financial services. These developments also benefit the Icelandic economy in the long run as they integrate Iceland further into the global economy, allow Iceland to draw more easily on the experience of others and bring in dividends. During the 20th century, Iceland tried almost every type of exchange rate policy, from a monetary union with Denmark to a managed float.

I hope that the meeting here today makes an important contribution to that effort. Economic growth, the current account and inflation 1990-2004 12 9  %  %  Inflation (right-hand axis) Economic growth (left-hand axis)  8 7  6  6  3  5  0  4  -3  3  -6  2  -9 -12  1 Current account, % of GDP (left-hand axis)  0  1991 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02* 03* 04* 1. Estimate for 2001-2002. Central Bank forecast for 2003-2004. Sources: Statistics Iceland and Central Bank of Iceland. BIS Review 21/2003  Forecast  3  The nominal effective exchange rate of króna January, 2000 – April, 2003 100  Desember 31, 1991 = 100  105 110  Inflation target adopted in March 2001  115 120 125 130 135  Exhange rate  Fluctuation limits (abolished in March 2001)  140 145 150 155  2000  |  2001  |  2002  | 2003  Source: Central Bank of Iceland. 4  BIS Review 21/2003
At the same time, we shall also need to monitor fiscal intentions in the euro area Member States, as they will become more transparent over the autumn. If governments merely adhere to previous deficit targets for 1999, the structural position of budgets in quite a number of countries would effectively deteriorate. This would entail that they would move farther away from, rather than BIS Review 72/1998  -3-  approach, the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact, which calls for the achievement of a budget close to balance or even in surplus. In addition to the review of economic developments, a number of organisational issues were settled. (i) The General Council adopted its Rules of Procedure, which will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities. You will recall that I informed you that the Governing Council’s Rules of Procedure were adopted in July. (ii) The General Council also decided that the non-euro area national central banks shall pay up 5% of their subscriptions to the capital of the European Central Bank (ECB). However, the four national central banks concerned will not be asked actually to pay in their share as the amount due is less than they can expect to receive as their share in the proceeds of the liquidation of the European Monetary Institute (EMI). Further details on the actual amounts involved are provided in the separate handout that will be issued to you this evening.

The Swiss franc temporarily appreciated immediately following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The trade-weighted Swiss franc exchange rate, however, was recently below its level at the beginning of the year (cf. chart 4). Adjustment of the threshold factor I would now like to discuss the lowering of the threshold factor from 30 to 28 as mentioned earlier by Thomas Jordan. With this technical adjustment, which will take effect from 1 July 2022, we will ensure that sufficient amounts of sight deposits are subject to negative interest, and that the latter is being passed on to the money market as intended. From March 2022, upward pressure built up on the short-term rates on the secured money market. This stemmed from the fact that the exemption thresholds had risen over time due to the dynamic calculation model, which meant that there were no longer sufficient amounts of sight deposits subject to negative interest. To keep the secured short-term money market rates close to the SNB policy rate, the SNB provided additional liquidity to the money market via repo transactions as a temporary measure. However, given that the increase in exemption thresholds is structural in nature, it is appropriate that we lower the threshold factor. This will result in the secured short-term money market rates being close to the SNB policy rate again without the SNB having to regularly provide larger amounts of liquidity. The SNB will continue to regularly review the basis for calculating the exemption threshold and adjust it as necessary.
We are also seeking to develop a renewed service that will be message network agnostic: capable of sending and receiving payment messages from multiple sources and interfacing with multiple messaging networks without compromising on levels of security or proof. And we will continue to support the resilience of the renewed RTGS by diversifying operations across two sites with a third stand-by settlement platform which is geographically remote. As I stressed at the start, the Bank needs to reflect the diversity of the people it serves and so increasing the diversity of the Bank’s workforce is at the top of our agenda. We have set ourselves stretching but 12  https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/payments/rtgs-renewal-proof-of-concept.pdf 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  6  achievable targets in respect of increasing the representation of women and BAME colleagues at all levels of the business.13 And we have implemented a wide range of initiatives designed to improve diversity in our recruitment, development and retention of talent across a range of protected characteristics. As a member of the Bank’s senior leadership team, I have personal accountability for delivering a step change in the Bank’s diversity. This is crucial in my own Directorate but also for the Bank as a whole.

This did not prove to be the case. As Jacques de Larosière, the former IMF Managing Director, once remarked, what was supposed to be a system of “peer pressure” too often turned into a system of “peer concessions” or “peer arrangements”. On the whole, the Maastricht framework proved unable to deal adequately with the high degree of economic and financial integration in the euro area. It was not fully understood that sharing a currency means much more than sharing the same monetary policy. It is a commitment to ensuring sound fiscal, economic and financial conditions. Euro area countries largely overlooked the substantial spillover effects that national policy decisions would have on their fellow countries in EMU euro area partners. The ongoing crisis has brought these shortcomings into sharp focus. 3. Short and longer-term solutions to the crisis: going beyond the Maastricht framework  3.1. The ECB’s contribution to resolving the crisis  Let me now turn to Europe’s policy response to the crisis. The EMU framework relies on a strict separation between monetary policy on the one hand, and fiscal and economic policies on the other. The monetary policy function is carried out by the ECB under a clear mandate: maintaining price stability over the medium term in the euro area. To achieve this goal, the ECB has been given full political and operational independence. Since the start of the crisis, the ECB has reacted forcefully. Since 2008, it has lowered its policy rate from 4.25% to 0.75% now.
Given the speed at which product innovation takes place, often spurred by exponential leaps in the dimensions of technical feasibility, and the concomitant growth in global financial flows, which impinges relentlessly on an economy such as ours where capital controls are prohibited constitutionally, those of us who are charged with the task of ensuring the soundness and competitive efficiency of the financial system need continuously to evolve our stance on supervision and regulation, as well as to keep a watchful eye for any communal actions desirable to improve the workings of the financial system, where we might helpfully serve some catalytic function. Let me mention just two areas of special attention in Hong Kong at present - without denying that there may be others too. The first concerns the stock and futures exchanges, where there is a major agenda for change. Notable components of this agenda are the 30-point programme announced last September for strengthening discipline and transparency in the markets - most of which have now been implemented - and the proposals announced by the Financial Secretary in March to reform and unify the ownership structures of the stock and futures exchanges and their clearing houses. A tight timetable has been set and progress should be visible later this year. The second concerns the development of the Hong Kong dollar debt market.

I am pretty confident that our research output will be improved and enhanced in the future. Challenges for macroeconomic research Today and tomorrow you will be talking essentially about macroeconomics. Looking forward, macro policies, monetary, fiscal, and macroprudential policies, are facing a number of challenges that require deep theoretical and empirical analysis. Perhaps, first of all, we need to understand the causes and consequences of the current levels of low inflation in most developed economies, despite the fact that most major central banks have introduced unprecedented monetary measures to support activity and growth. Several explanations, ranging from a “debt supercycle” to a secular stagnation have been proposed. If natural rates at very low or even negative levels are here to stay, central bankers will have to rethink our standard toolbox and to decide which policy measures put in place during the last decade should be maintained. In this respect, I think that the first paper of the conference, which analyzes the effects of negative nominal interest rates, will offer new insights on this important topic. Secondly, we need to improve our understanding of the links between monetary policy, macroprudential policy and financial stability. The financial crisis underlined how an impaired financial system could cause severe economic damage and disrupt the transmission of monetary policy. Moreover, following the financial crisis, many central banks have provided with new macroprudential tools that remain largely untested.
This will lead to increasing the confidence in the financial system. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Board for International Accounting Standards have already undertaken certain activities. •  The regulation on determining and measuring banks' solvency deserves special attention. The appropriate level of capital is the main anchor for a stable banking system. When this issue is discussed internationally, primarily a reference is made to the New Capital Accord, the so-called BASEL II. It is being criticized even before its full implementation and therefore it is inappropriate to refer to it as one of the reasons for the current crisis. However, it is important to mention that draft amendments have already been prepared as a response to the new developments. Those are, inter alia, the following: -  Improvement of the manner of covering the risks arising from the use of structural financial products. -  Changes in determining the capital necessary for covering the risks from banks' trading portfolio, especially of those instruments characterized with lower liquidity on the market. -  Measures for reducing the effects from the economic cycles on the level of the capital requirement. The purpose is: to allocate more reserves in periods of expansion in order to provide sufficient capital for covering the losses in times of crisis. This is Spanish experience, known as "dynamic provisioning". -  Expanding of the type of data which the banks will be obliged to disclose.

I would only like to mention that the National Bank has commenced the activities for implementing BASEL II in the Macedonian banking system. Does and will this crisis have an impact on our economies? It already has and it will have an additional impact depending on its duration. The first blow is for the real sector. In all of our countries, depending on the structure of the economy, the export sector will be most severely hit. BIS Review 18/2009  5  Consensus Forecasts of October 2008, envisages that the growth of the US economy will equal 1.4% and in 2009 it will be 0%, with a projected fall of the personal consumption and faster decline in the investment consumption. The growth of the EU economy for 2008 has been adjusted downward (1.4%) and for 2009 it is 0.6%. For an illustration, 60% of the Macedonian export is in the EU countries. The trading conditions have already deteriorated and we project further deepening of the trade and the current account deficits, whereas the increased minus between the exports and the imports will act toward reducing our growth rate. We expect a negative impact also in the capital and financial accounts, but at this moment it is difficult to quantify it. Banking will not be hit directly. There is no exposure in risk-bearing financial instruments. Deposits are dispersed according to the regulations.
Since we are also moving forward in setting-up a Single Resolution Mechanism [SRM] for the 17 Member States that share the Euro, an agreement has to be reached on the moment in which bail-in of senior creditors becomes applicable, as rules have to be the same to all Euro-members. In this regard, it is important to note that, while sharing the main objective of bail-in, many of the Eurosystem Central Banks, including Banco de España, have shown concerns on the early application of bail-in tools for senior creditors, due to its potential destabilizing effects. We would advice against too short a sequencing. I will finish my address of today saying that my guess for 2014 related to banking regulation and supervision, is that it is going to be a “fully loaded” year for the industry, and for national authorities and supervisors. I wish all of you good luck and good courage, and for all our visitors, a happy stay in Madrid. Thank you for your attention. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches

On the basis of the 2018 European-wide stress test data, we estimate that the banks’ behavioural reaction to the adverse scenario exacerbates the fall in GDP by a further 1.6% with respect to the initial shock, which itself further depletes banks’ capital.7  Cyclical factors Given that important link between bank behaviour and the cycle, let me turn to the cyclical factors affecting bank profitability in the euro area. The economic expansion continued through 2018, although with a sizeable reduction in the pace of growth relative to the previous year. Since the trough, the number of people in employment has increased by over 10 million. While the data since the end of 2018 have been weak – notably in manufacturing and the external sector – the economic fundamentals remain in place to support continued expansion. The economic expansion and employment growth have supported bank profitability. Loan growth has been robust in recent years, with higher volumes helping to mitigate margin compression.8 The stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) has been substantially reduced. Outstanding NPLs fell by € billion in 2018 and the aggregate ratio dropped to 3.8% of significant banks’ loans at the end of 2018, from 7% at the end of 2015. NPLs represent a double drag on bank profitability. First, NPLs have to be recognised and provisioned for, reducing current profitability. Indeed, the major driver of the increase in bank profitability over the past two years has been the smaller flow of new impairments.