samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Perhaps, the greatest challenge is to achieve a lasting peace. Economic growth and peace are interlinked. Therefore, the process to accelerate economic growth and the peace process need to move in tandem. Further, structural reforms have to be continued. In this connection it is necessary to convince all stakeholders of the need for reforms to enhance the efficiency in the economy. Macroeconomic management has to be strengthened further to contain macroeconomic imbalances. In this regard, we have had the benefit of considerable assistance from international financial institutions, in particular, the IMF, World Bank and the ADB. Not only have they provided funds at critical times, but they have also been most helpful in providing technical assistance and advice. Sound macroeconomic management requires that the fiscal consolidation process be continued as required in the Fiscal (Responsibility) Management Act, to enhance public investment, attain a sustainable level of public debt, and reduce inflationary pressures. This has to be accompanied by the continuation of a monetary policy that would maintain price stability and avoid the emergence of inflationary pressures that are highly injurious, particularly to the most vulnerable groups in society. The Central Bank will continue to focus on this area. In addition, reforms in the financial sector need to be pursued vigorously to ensure a vibrant and stable financial environment that would be able to take advantage of the links to the international markets and support growth. The high international price of fuel is a major concern.

Poverty still remains at significant levels; marked disparities in regional economic activity are clearly evident; unemployment, although declining, is still high, particularly among the youth; agricultural productivity is low, resulting in low farmer income and higher prices for consumers; despite some diversification of the economy, exports are concentrated in a few commodities and a few markets, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the economy; the fiscal deficit has remained high, resulting in inflationary pressures and increasing public debt; and essential economic infrastructure remains inadequate. These concerns have been aggravated by the tragic consequences of the tsunami that resulted in the loss of so many lives and extensive destruction of property. Today, the challenge is to consider how to achieve a balanced growth with economic and social stability. Let me now highlight some of the specifics on recent economic developments and policy challenges. Macroeconomic developments Sri Lanka was able to maintain an annual average economic growth of around 5 per cent in the post liberalization era. The country’s resilience to adverse shocks has improved with a significant diversification of economic activity, particularly in the export structure. This enabled Sri Lanka to achieve a growth of 5.4 per cent in 2004, in spite of several major shocks, such as the surge in international oil prices, a severe drought in the early part of the year and floods later in the year and finally, the tsunami disaster. Per capita income has increased to US dollars 1,030 in 2004.
Net savings by UK companies currently stand at around 1% of GDP. That means, when we look at household disposable income per head, we find it has essentially flat-lined since 2009 (Chart 4). Even as GDP has recovered, household incomes have essentially stagnated. Even the notion of the “average household” needs careful interpretation. Looking at a different “average” – the household in the centre of the distribution or median – suggests this flat-lining in disposable incomes may have pre-dated the crisis (Chart 4). Half of all UK households have seen no material recovery in their real disposable incomes since around 2005. Or, put more evocatively and provocatively, the majority of UK households have faced a “lost decade” of income. Next let’s look at employment. The aggregate numbers here are hugely impressive, with 2½ million new jobs created since 2010. The UK unemployment rate has fallen like a stone, from 8.5% in 2011 to around 5% currently. And the news gets better. Chart 5 breaks down these new jobs into full-time, part-time and self-employment. It is clear that the lion’s share of the jobs’ increase over the past few years is accounted for by rises in full-time work. This has been not just a jobs-rich recovery, but a full-time, jobs-rich recovery. Yet the nature of work may matter every bit as much as headline jobs numbers. Work is about more than just the money; it adds to life satisfaction and self-esteem and lowers anxiety and  4  4  Bernanke (2011).

The sharing of sovereignty is also the pre-condition for any risk-sharing mechanisms at the euro area level. The recent Report by the Four Presidents mentioned the gradually development of a fiscal capacity for the EMU – that is, a common budget for the euro area distinct from the EU budget. It identified two possible functions of such fiscal capacity: first, facilitating the adjustment to country-specific shocks; and, second, providing financial incentives for structural reforms. Reflections on this are at a very early stage and the pros and cons need to be carefully weighed but it is a very important component of a fiscal union. There is a long debate going back to the Werner Report in 1971 or to the preparation of the Maastricht Treaty on the degree of fiscal integration that is necessary to sustain a monetary union. In my view the key question on taking detailed decisions remains that of efficiency, being necessary to assess whether there are economic benefits in excess of costs in moving some expenditure to the euro area level. Economic union The third pillar, economic union, is necessary to ensure the conditions for prosperity within a monetary union and thereby prevent countries from becoming a burden on others. Without the possibility for exchange rate adjustment, countries have to remain sufficiently flexible to adjust through other channels as underlined by the theory of Optimal Currency Areas.
In Malaysia, the payment system has significantly transformed over the last 25 years. The journey started many years ago in 1997, major changes to the payment landscape occurred with the consolidation of the three ATM networks in the country into MEPS. This initiative removed duplication and enhanced the network multiplier effects. In fact, Malaysia was among the first in the world to complete the migration to the more secure chip-based payment cards in 2005. To provide a roadmap for the development, in 2011, Bank Negara Malaysia developed a 10-year Financial Sector Blueprint which amongst others, outlined the initiative to displace paperbased payment instruments, namely cheques and cash, in favour of the more convenient and cost effective e-payment methods. We now have PayNet, the domestic shared infrastructure at the heart of the country’s payment systems. We envision PayNet to be a catalyst, one that challenges the status quo to drive its diverse members to foster competition and innovation, develop cost effective solutions and advance financial inclusion through digital payments. We should expect PayNet to ensure that the payment infrastructure of this country will always be at the cutting edge of technology. This will enable the economy to innovate, be competitive and productive. The results speak for themselves; we have made great strides. Payment card spending has increased by more than threefold since 2006 to RM176.9 billion in 2017. From 2011 to 2017, epayments per capita have more than doubled to 111 transactions.

We do not need to suffer the agony of remembering our account numbers ever again. The RPP will be facilitated by a National Addressing Database (NAD) and an interoperable QR code payment scheme. Seamless and secure payments between bank and non-bank e-money accounts will also become a reality. Given the overwhelming benefits from this initiative, it is incumbent on all of us to drive the promotion of RPP, such as in facilitating user registration with the NAD and merchant adoption of the common QR code. Let us make the RPP services a household service and transform all mobile phones into mobile wallets. The RPP should not be merely a banking service, but a lifestyle solution. The industry ought to build upon the RPP and enhance its research and development capabilities. One such area is through the publication of Open Application Programming Interfaces (or better known as Open APIs). Based on our interaction with the banking community, there is interest for this among our banks. The Bank’s survey last year indicated that more than 50% of banks in Malaysia view Open API as a high priority. Thus, the industry should leverage on Open API to facilitate collaboration with fintech firms to introduce innovations and facilitate new use cases to enhance the RPP’s value proposition to businesses and consumers. Notably, the RPP can offer a treasure trove of data. This can be mined to develop more tailored payment solutions, fraud detection capabilities, and to support potential strategic partnerships with financial or non-financial players.
Another benefit of centralisation of portfolio management through delegation is that it allows firms to aggregate the execution of trades across vehicles, thereby achieving better outcomes for the end investor. It enables multi-manager funds that allow investors to diversify exposure to managers while minimising costs. And from an investor protection standpoint, centralised portfolio management allows investment firms to more efficiently address ‘fair allocation’ requirements – fairly allocating purchases or sales across all clients in similar strategies and to aggregate similar strategies when forming the performance ‘composites’ that are presented to prospective clients. Delegation, of course, has to exist within a framework of regulation to ensure investor protection. Fund managers need to delegate responsibly. Delegation must not be allowed to become devolution. Managers should not use delegation to escape their obligations and accountability for managing their investors’ money. They must supervise and track activities that have been delegated. And the entities to which they delegate must be regulated appropriately in their own jurisdictions. Supervisors in the respective jurisdictions need to be able and willing to cooperate. There are of course already global norms covering delegation. In 2000, IOSCO set out broad principles to underpin the regulation of delegated functions. In the EU, these have been already implemented through the likes of UCITS and AIFMD. I do not want to comment here on the detail and motivation of the current EU proposals.

But, as the global pool of non-bank assets has grown, the US share has declined while the share of emerging economies, most notably China has increased. (Chart 1) The growth of market-based finance since the crisis does not, as some have claimed, represent the movement of toxic risks out of the regulated banking sector into less regulated areas. Indeed the opposite, if anything is true, in that we have seen a movement within market-based finance away from the more dangerous forms of ‘shadow banking’ – away from the types of activities that were at the centre of the financial crisis and that amplified and transmitted stress to other parts of the financial system. 2  Much of this shift is the result of the post crisis regulatory reforms. As the Financial Stability Board (FSB) noted in its report to the G20 this year, ‘a series of measures are eliminating toxic forms of shadow banking and transforming the remaining into resilient market-based finance’. 3  In a nutshell, market-based finance has become a bigger part of the global system, more broad based regionally and less engaged in the riskier aspects of shadow banking. From a financial stability perspective, that is generally a good thing. There are a number of aspects of the growth in market-based finance that reduce financial stability risks. Most obviously there is the benefit of diversification. A strong, market-based channel of financial intermediation in the economy avoids over-reliance on the banking system and creates resilience.
These developments were expected to bring important benefits to the financial system and the broader economy: o  As part of the securitisation process credit risk is now “sliced and diced” and more widely spread in the financial system to be sold to a wide spectrum of investors  o  In theory, banks can offload those risks from their balance sheets to other financial investors – including hedge funds – and use their overall capital more efficiently  o  In this way, also in theory, risk is allocated to those agents best equipped and most willing to take it  o  So the overall capacity of the system to bear risks is, everything equal, increased  With hindsight, we now see some unanticipated problems and difficulties associated with those innovations:  BIS Review 144/2007  1  o  There is no incentive for originators of loans to assess – let alone monitor – the creditworthiness of borrowers since they expect to transfer the totality to other investors. This explains the explosion of lending to subprime borrowers, with more and more "exotic" features during the last two years. This may also have fuelled the dynamism of the LBO market. o  The process has gone with an increasing complexity of instruments, which combine an extensive use of derivatives with customization to individual investors' needs. This has made valuation and risk assessment more difficult. o  Indeed, valuation of complex instruments is currently at the forefront of discussions between regulators, market participants and investors.

François Villeroy de Galhau: Digital innovation - what role can we play as central banks? Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Singapore Fintech Festival, 8 November 2021. * * * Ladies and Gentlemen, It is always a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak at the Singapore Fintech Festival, and I wish to thank Ravi Menon and the Monetary Authority of Singapore for organizing it. Although I am joining from Paris today, I look forward to coming back to Singapore soon to continue exchanging. Innovation may not be the first thing that comes to mind about central banks. After all, our institutions have been around for quite some time: MAS just turned 50 – and I take this opportunity to congratulate this golden Jubilee –, and Banque de France is more than 2 centuries old. We are more associated with stability than disruption… Yet the blossoming of digital innovation has the potential to transform the financial system in its entirety. We have to embrace these changes, but there are also things that we need to preserve in this process: the stability of the financial system. Innovation and stability can appear as contradictory in the short run; but they are complementary through a common value; a keystone: trust. Trust of the public in money. To be implemented effectively, these dual principles of innovation and stability require a cooperative setting.
My speech today focuses on 3 areas: •  Firstly, I will provide an update on the recent developments in Malaysia’s payment ecosystem and the progress that we have made thus far in accelerating the country’s migration to e-payments;  •  Secondly, I will highlight how JomPAY helps to address the current limitations in online bill payments and how it complements the existing efforts to expand epayment services; and  •  Finally, I will elaborate on the importance of industry-wide collaborative efforts and the role that MyClear and the industry can play in bringing the online bill payments market to greater heights. Recent developments in Malaysia’s payment ecosystem The use of cash and cheques remains prevalent in Malaysia. Malaysia’s cash usage measured by currency-in-circulation (CIC) over GDP was about 6% in 2013, which is 100% higher than the average in advanced economies 1. Likewise, Malaysia’s cheque usage per capita was 6.6 in 2013, which is 33 times higher than that in advanced economies 2. But the recent measures being instituted have shown tangible results. I am pleased to inform you that promising progress has been made since the introduction of the Pricing Reform Framework in May 2013 and the more concerted efforts taken to improve and promote the use of Interbank GIRO (IBG). In 2014, cheque usage declined at a faster rate of 10%, compared to only 3% in 2013. At the same time, the number of IBG transactions increased by 36% in 2014 compared to 19% in 2013.

Muhammad bin Ibrahim: Increasing payment efficiency to improve productivity Keynote address by Mr Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the JomPAY’s Official Launch Event, Kuala Lumpur, 9 April 2015. *  *  *  In today’s challenging and rapidly evolving world, one must constantly find innovative and efficient ways to remain productive, or risk being left behind. As payments represent an indispensable activity for both individuals and businesses, increasing payment efficiency through the adoption of electronic payments (e-payments) will improve productivity and reduce the cost of transactions. At the macro level, the adoption of e-payments has the potential to enhance Malaysia’s overall economic efficiency and competitiveness. The benefits in terms of cost savings and efficiency gains from a successful migration to epayments are substantial. The launch of JomPAY today is part of the journey towards realization of these objectives. JomPAY provides greater efficiency, convenience and accessibility for the public to make bill payments. It also represents a conscious strategy that will contribute towards making the way we conduct financial transactions more efficient.
And only three years ago the Bank’s Court held its annual out-of-London meeting in Liverpool’s imposing Town Hall. I am particularly pleased to launch this, the third edition of the Merseyside Economic Review. The Partnership had its origins in a Daily Post campaign over a decade ago (‘who speaks for Merseyside?’). It broke new ground then and it has been breaking new ground ever since. The Economic Review was the first of its kind for any UK City Region. And the Partnership’s report on ‘the Gender Agenda: Women in the Merseyside economy’ is another first. The value of the Partnership’s approach is clear. Economic regeneration is a highly complex long term business which has to bring together many different bodies and initiatives – at local, regional, national, European and even international levels. It’s only too easy to lose sight of the big picture. But successful partnership rests on shared goals and clear expectations. This Review charts the way: it sets out in clear and simple terms what the Partnership is seeking to achieve and it assesses progress against measurable objectives. It has the credibility that comes from being grounded in serious analysis of the issues confronting Merseyside. And it has benefited from the advice of an independent panel of distinguished experts. There is no doubt that the performance of monetary policy has benefited greatly from setting clear objectives and measuring progress in a transparent and open way.

A strong krone and low external price impulses will continue to have a dampening impact on inflation, and inflation will remain below target for some time. Further ahead, higher capacity utilisation and profitability in the business sector point to a pickup in wage growth. At the same time, the fall in import prices will slow. To conclude: Norway has weathered the financial crisis better than most countries, and the economic recovery in Norway is now on a firm footing. Currently, interest rates are low, with the key policy rate at 2 per cent. In the years ahead, there are prospects for fairly strong growth in the Norwegian economy, driven by solid income growth, rising investment and high population growth. On balance, the consideration of stabilising inflation, as well as developments in output and employment, imply a gradual increase in the key policy rate towards a more normal level. Thank you for your attention. BIS central bankers’ speeches  11
13 Trade repositories provide a comprehensive overview of the transactions in the markets they serve, which contributes to better risk management, public supervision and oversight as well as market discipline. The ECB actively supports the current work to develop such a central database for the EU repo market. 14 It could be established in a joint effort by public authorities and the financial industry. b)  Collateral optimisation  Let me now turn to the second point on collateral optimisation. As recognised in the CPSS report, the “efficient and flexible use of collateral facilitates market participants’ collateral management and can contribute to the development of liquidity and smoothly functioning repo markets”. This was considered to hold true for repo markets in normal times as well as allowing an enhancement of the resilience of repo markets in times of stress. The need for efficient and flexible use of collateral facilities has even become  12  See, for instance, D. Duffie and H. Zhu, “Does a Central Clearing Counterparty Reduce Counterparty Risk?”, Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 1, December 2011. 13  Trade repositories are central databases that compile and aggregate data across various execution and clearing venues. 14  See Vítor Constâncio, Introductory remarks to the ECB workshop – Repo market and securities lending: towards an EU database, 3 December 2012, see https://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2012/ html/sp121203.en.html. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  greater in the past couple of years, taking into account the generally increasing demands for collateral assets coming from various quarters.

For example, the EONIA rate – the rate of unsecured overnight lending between some of the largest euro area banks – is an important first link in the chain of monetary policy transmission. Ever since the financial turmoil started in August 2007 – more than five years ago – and then became a severe crisis with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers one year later in  1  I wish to thank Fiona van Echelpoel, Benjamin Hanssens, Florian Heider, and Marie Hoerova, for their contributions to this speech. I remain solely responsible for the opinions contained herein. 2  CPSS report: “Strengthening repo clearing and settlement arrangements”, September 2010. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  September 2008, money markets have not been operating smoothly. The outbreak of the financial crisis has been well documented, but it is worthwhile recalling the extent of the shocks, which are still being felt today. 3 Within a few days after the demise of Lehman Brothers on 15 September 2008, the EURIBOR-OIS spread, which had been zero a little over 12 months before, rose to a staggering 186 basis points (in the United States the spread rose to 365 basis points). In addition, cash-rich banks were apparently no longer lending to cash-poor banks. The flow of liquidity in the financial system came to a sudden stop. Prior to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, banks hardly ever deposited funds at the ECB (where they earn the deposit facility rate, which at the time was 1% less than the policy rate).