samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
And here I must say that I do not feel comfortable with the recent developments in financial markets. The surge in asset prices in many countries, the absence of volatility in many markets and the low level of credit spreads show that today's investors have an unprecedented confidence in the future and a strong appetite for all types of risks. For sure, economic fundamentals have improved in industrialised and in emerging countries. It is, however, hard to believe that the world economy has now entered a phase of lasting and accelerating prosperity. We must remain alert. No major financial crisis has shaken the world in recent years in spite of the Iraq war, rising oil prices, major natural disasters, various terrorist attacks and permanent rumours of new terrorist attacks. The resilience that financial sectors have shown may cause us to forget that crises are still a possibility. Thus, the major challenge for international business today is, to my mind, to keep a weather eye open even when the waters appear calm. 4  BIS Review 120/2006

A quick pace of rate normalisation also creates a safety buffer to tackle possible disruptions in the markets that may ensue as the balance sheet of the Eurosystem is gradually adjusted to the new macroeconomic environment. Indeed, while policy rates currently represent the primary tool to normalise monetary conditions, their interaction with the balance sheet of the central bank matters to gauge the overall degree of monetary support to the economy. In conclusion decisiveness in tackling high inflation must come with the flexibility to address the possible side-effects from policy normalisation. Fiscal policy should be deployed to support the most vulnerable by means of targeted and temporary measures so that central banks' effort to restore price stability is not jeopardised. At the international level, there is scope for greater cooperation to prevent financial stability risks from materialising and to bring inflation down without jeopardising economic and social development. Thank you for your attention. 4/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches
While the Thai package showed how neighbours are willing to help supplement Fund resources, this has the tendency to reinforce regional arrangements rather than dealing with the issue on a global basis. 53. We hope that a precedent has not been set that, if the Mexican crisis was an American problem, the Thai crisis an Asian one, the next case will be for whichever region to resolve. Such regionalism does not auger well for international monetary co-operation. We feel therefore that the resources of the Fund should be strengthened considerably and access level reviewed in the light of recent developments. This also applies to monitoring and enforcement efforts by the Fund. It would clearly not be efficient for regional groupings to duplicate the role of the existing international organizations such as the IMF and the BIS, with recognized expertise and the machinery to deal with these issues. In any case, a regional crisis is quite often not limited geographically, but has global ramifications. In dealing with a crisis, the Fund should also have the mechanism and authority in place to negotiate with private sector lenders to ensure that equitable burden sharing remains, and that the burden of adjustment does not fall only on official creditors. 54. Another important area for Asian monetary co-operation is the building of the market infrastructure.

Clearly, Asian economies have benefited much from such capital inflows, but at the same time they have exposed themselves to the threat of a sudden loss of market confidence and hence large outflows of funds due to policy mistakes or shifts in the international economic environment. This is particularly true if a large proportion of inflows are volatile portfolio investment or short-term borrowing. 24. The next monetary problem concerns current account deficits. A number of Asian economies were able to run larger than normal current account deficits in the balance of payments because they were easily funded by capital inflows. The bad news about large capital inflows is that they might allow investment and even consumption to expand without enduring the pain of overheating or loss of competitiveness. Higher levels of domestic credit, consumption, investment, growth and even budget revenues can be sustained at the cost of rapid accumulation of foreign debt. To make matters worse, over 80% of the current account deficits of selected Asian economies was funded from short-term bank debt. In hindsight, the ready availability of short-term external financing might have delayed the necessary policy adjustments in face of cyclical and structural changes in the domestic and international economic environment. In short, we can all easily make the mistake of taking capital inflows for granted. 25. Then there is asset price inflation which is a rather common consequence of capital inflows. In an open economic environment, capital inflows may not lead to consumer price inflation, since imports would alleviate excess demand.
The Governor of the Bank of Zambia is a member of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority, whose main functions are to provide policy directives to the Commissioner of the Drug Enforcement Commission and to advise the Minister of Home Affairs on measures that are required to prevent and detect money-laundering activities in Zambia. •  In order to minimise the likelihood of criminals or their organisations from taking control of or setting up their own banks, the Bank of Zambia as the licensing authority of banks and financial institutions, has put in place a rigorous licensing process, which ensures that only ‘fit and proper’ persons are allowed to own and manage financial institutions. •  Know Your Customer Directive. Even before the coming into effect of the Prohibition and Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the Bank of Zambia, inline with the Basle Committee’s guidelines issued the ‘Know Your Customer’ Directive in December 1998. The directive outlines the basic procedures that bank managements should put in place within their institutions to prevent criminal use of the banking system. It also places limitations on the amounts of foreign exchange that individuals can transact. Mr Chairman, the banking sector in Zambia has also not lagged behind in terms of coming up with an industry response to this scourge. The Bankers’ Association of Zambia (BAZ) issued the ‘Code of Banking Practice in Zambia’ in 2002, outlining the Association’s commitment to fighting money laundering and complying with the letter and spirit of money laundering in all parts of the world.

It was during that time that we came to recognize that the relationship among monetary aggregates, inflation, and output in Thailand did not have sufficient stability and predictability to make monetary aggregates a good nominal anchor of our monetary policy. Inflation targeting then appeared as a natural choice for our new monetary policy regime. From that day onward, price stability has become the Bank of Thailand’s overriding policy objective. The core inflation rate was, as it is now, to be kept within a 0-3.5 percent range. When Thailand adopted an inflation target some six years ago, the policy regime was a relatively uncharted territory for emerging market economies. Although the history of inflation targeting dates back to 1990 with the adoption of an inflation target by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, prior to 1998, inflation targeting was pursued mostly by developed economies. The first substantial crosscountry study of inflation targeting, published by Ben Bernanke, Thomas Laubach, Frederick Mishkin and Adam Posen, who is here today, in 1999, was mainly about inflation targeting experiences of developed economies, with the exception of Israel. The situation looked vastly different from today where emerging market inflation targeters outnumber developed market ones. Ladies and gentlemen, Six years may be too short to claim definite success for inflation targeting in Thailand. Nevertheless, inflation targeting as a monetary policy framework has served us well over the period. When we first adopted an inflation target, our economy was still very much affected by the 1997 crisis.
Ong Chong Tee: Banking supervision - the path ahead Opening address by Mr Ong Chong Tee, Deputy Managing Director (Financial Supervision) of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the 13th Asia-Pacific High Level Meeting on Banking Supervision, Singapore, 28 February 2018. * * * Mr Agustin Carstens, General Manager, BIS Mr Fernando Restoy, Chairman, FSI Mr William Coen, Secretary General, BCBS Ms Chuchi Fonacier, Chairman, EMEAP WGBS and Deputy Governor, BSP Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 1 Good morning. My colleagues and I at the MAS are pleased to host this 13th Asia-Pacific High Level Meeting on Banking Supervision. It is also my honour to be able to offer some remarks to precede the interesting panel sessions over the next two days. Basel III reforms 2 It has been a decade since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Since then, wide-ranging regulatory reforms have been formulated to further safeguard the stability and functioning of the global financial system. One major set of the reforms is the Basel III standards for banks; and this includes boosting capital buffers, new liquidity requirements and limiting overall leverage. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) also led work to address “too-big-to-fail” concerns. Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) are now subject to higher capital, more intense supervision, and resolution planning requirements. 3 The recent finalisation of the 2017 Basel III reforms complete the post-crisis banking reform agenda. The Basel Committee and global banking regulators have shifted focus to implementation of the revised standards.

At the same time, the Albania's budget deficit declined to 3.7% of GDP in 2022 from 4.6% of GDP in 2021, while public debt reduced to 64.6% of GDP from 74.5%. This improvement reflected the fast growth of public revenues, the reduction of the budget deficit in response to the fiscal consolidation policy, as well as the strengthening of the exchange rate. Last, but not least, financial markets have been relatively calm and the banking sector has performed positively, despite the elevated trend of interest rates and the higher uncertainty that has characterized the market actors. In particular, the banking sector appears robust, with good indicators of liquidity, profitability and capitalization. This sector has already turned into a stable business partner for Albanian households, supplying them with the necessary funds for the expansion of activity, providing reliable instruments for maintaining their savings, as well as by constantly expanding the range of financial products and payment instruments. Our analyses suggest that systemic risks remain contained, while the high level of capitalization and liquidity provides a significant buffer to withstand shocks. Dear ladies and gentlemen, The good resilience of the Albanian economy in the face of the ongoing crises of recent years is an evidence, first of all, of the dynamism, flexibility and sound balance sheets of Albanian businesses and households.
Priority should be given to use up-to-date technology for transactions routing mechanisms, security systems and codes for inter bank clearing and settlement mechanisms. ii. Efficiency and risk control: Many developing countries, in general, and South Asia in particular, are characterized by a heavy use of cheques, which indicates that the retail sector is far from being optimal from the point of view of efficiency and risk control. Central banks and all stakeholders in the retail payments arena need to take early action to reduce the cheques and design a strategy to incentivise users to move towards other electronic payment instruments. It is also important to correct the wrong impression that cheque processing through Automated Clearing Houses (ACH) is cheaper than investment in electronic payment systems and on line processing. The view that outstation and rural customers are reluctant to use electronic cheques or credit and debit cards is no longer true. iii. Involve governments: Government involvement in the development of retail payment system is a key, although it has become one of the difficult tasks. Many government transactions are in cash or by cheque, and governments are not keen to acquire modern payment infrastructure or recognize the benefits of using newer payment instruments. One obvious reason for this is the ready access governments have to state banks’ cash items in process of collection, which enables immediate credit to governments.

This encourages banks to grant loans to SMEs and refinance them by borrowing from the ECB. In parallel, our supervisory arm ensured that there were no prudential barriers to banks acting quickly, which freed up € billion in bank capital for new lending. And fiscal authorities complemented our efforts, making available wide-ranging loan guarantees and other liquidity support measures – equalling close to 20% of euro area GDP. This was crucial to mitigate the higher credit risk banks face when lending to SMEs during a recession. As a result, from March to May last year, bank lending to euro area firms rose by the largest amount on record. And it was SMEs that benefited the most from both cheap and abundant credit. 4/8  Lending rates on very small loans – which are a proxy for lending to SMEs – declined substantially, with firms able to borrow at the lowest rates ever recorded – below 2%. [10] And, since March, € billion in new small loans have been granted to SMEs in the euro area, including € billion to SMEs in Germany. Our policies were key to achieving that outcome. Banks taking part in our TLTROs saw a considerable increase in their credit growth, with loans rising by over € billion in the year up to September. And this dovetailed with government loan guarantees to funnel credit to SMEs, which received more than 70% of all the guaranteed loans granted.
The influence of monetary policy in the short and long run – research At the end of the 1950s the economist A. W. Phillips found a negative relationship between unemployment and inflation by studying data from the UK for the period 1861-1957 1 , a relationship that is usually referred to as the Phillips curve. This shows that higher employment can be achieved at the cost of higher inflation. It was thus long believed that one could "buy” long-term lower unemployment by pushing up inflation. However this relationship was empirically proved not to hold in the long run. In the 1970s, for instance, there were periods with both high unemployment and high inflation, what is known as stagflation. The relationship was also tackled from a theoretical angle. In a famous article from the late 1960s Milton Friedman discussed what monetary policy can and cannot achieve. 2 His view was that in the long run monetary policy is unable to affect real economic variables such as unemployment and GDP. However, it can affect nominal variables such as the exchange rate and price level. In the long run there is a "natural” level of unemployment that is dependent on the functioning of the labour market. If monetary policy tries to push down unemployment below this "natural" level, it will only result in higher inflation. Monetary policy therefore risks becoming a disturbing factor in the economy.

They basically have to do with the principles that monetary policy decision-makers have to choose between when productivity growth accelerates. One possibility, given that the economy is in equilibrium, is to let output growth exceed the potential rate for a time. This leads to a temporary fall in unemployment but the direct dampening effect is so strong that inflation can be held in the vicinity of the target. This alternative presumably requires an instrumental rate that is kept at a comparatively low level. The other possibility, given that the economy is benefiting from the rising productivity growth, is to let output growth match the new, higher potential rate. Unemployment is then unchanged and the direct dampening effect is left to work through so that inflation falls below the target without this having any consequences for monetary policy. The two alternatives thus amount to choosing a temporarily lower level of either unemployment or inflation, or a combination of the two, during the actual process of adjustment. Taken literally, the Riksbank’s rule of action tells us that a temporarily lower level of unemployment is not the "correct" choice. Monetary policy should instead be sufficiently stimulatory to keep inflation close to the target. In other words, the central bank should let the economy grow faster than the potential rate and pave the way for a temporary fall in unemployment. In this context, however, an unduly rigid interpretation of monetary policy’s rule of action can be risky. Let me explain why.
The interest rate differential with other currencies, which had narrowed considerably due to declining interest rates abroad, again expanded significantly following this decision. Even after the ECB’s mild interest rate cut, the Swiss franc/euro interest rate differential remains significantly wider than at the beginning of the year. This has helped to weaken the Swiss franc, pulling it back from the highs recorded shortly after the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate. Short-term inflation expectations declined substantially immediately after the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate. Since then, they have stabilised. Surveys indicate that companies expect positive inflation rates over a horizon of two years and more. Despite weak inflation in recent years, inflation expectations six to ten years into the future have barely changed. Companies evidently believe that the negative inflation we are currently experiencing will be temporary. As you can see from our inflation forecast, our forecast models confirm this assumption. Monetary policy outlook Ladies and gentlemen, let me summarise my key points. The depreciation of the euro against other major currencies confirms that the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate was a necessary step. Diverging monetary policy stances in the major currency areas present small open economies like Switzerland, in particular, with huge challenges as they typically trigger substantial exchange rate fluctuations and hamper economic growth. Switzerland’s economy is thus going through a difficult phase.

In these uncertain times and with all the increased interconnectedness of the world economy, volatility and short-term fickleness of marketplace are unavoidable. The wise thing to do is to understand the nature of this global interconnectedness, enhance risk management at both the macro and micro levels to mitigate negative impact that it may bring upon, all the while maximizing opportunities that it can immensely provide. It is conceivable that, in this highly integrated world, information and confidence are very important in influencing actions. Just as how “shifts in beliefs” can go a long way to create extreme market reactions and volatility, on a positive side I trust that a successful “anchoring of confidence” in our “shared beliefs” of ASEAN’s strength and future will encourage actions and commitments that will bring sustained prosperity for all. Thank you. And happy birthday to The Nation. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
As short-term interest rates approached the effective lower bound, central banks on both sides of the Atlantic undertook a number of unconventional measures aimed at influencing the whole constellation of rates that are important for the financial decisions taken by households and businesses. Forward guidance helped guide market expectations of future short-term rates. QE involved direct intervention by central banks in markets through large scale asset purchases to influence the yield curve beyond the very short term. A large body of empirical research has substantiated the success of these policies in supporting the economy and inflation, both in the euro area and in the United States.13 But central bank policy moves extended beyond just measures to counteract the impairment of the transmission mechanism caused by financial frictions. The ECB also acted in various ways to prevent self-fulfilling expectations from delivering socially undesirable outcomes by coordinating expectations onto “good” outcomes. One such policy initiative was our lender-of-last-resort intervention during the financial crisis. Revisiting the Bagehot principles set out a century and a half ago in the light of the ongoing crisis,14 the ECB lent freely to solvent financial institutions against sound collateral, penalised by a haircut. We did so in multiple ways: our liquidity operations moved to a fixed rate full allotment basis with unprecedented maturity of four years, and we widened the eligible collateral accepted in our operations.

Governor Subbarao has been a staunch advocate of RBI’s pro-active role in addressing financial inclusion to help those underserved. As the world’s second most populous country, India has faced an uphill task to expand financial inclusion, especially to individuals in remote areas. But the numbers speak for themselves: in 2011, just 35 percent of adults have bank accounts according to the World Bank’s Global Findex Report. By 2017 that number has dramatically risen to 80 percent. In his keynote address this morning Governor Subbarao will share with us India’s remarkable experience on improving financial inclusion by using digital technologies. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Governor Subbarao. 4/4