samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Another idea that I have discussed is the creation of a database of banker misconduct to combat the problem of “rolling bad apples.” In these cases, employees who are dismissed due to suspicion or proof of misconduct are unwittingly hired by other firms in the industry, where they 5/8  BIS central bankers' speeches  have the opportunity to repeat their actions. Understandably, firms are concerned about legal risk if they share information about banker misconduct, but there may be ways to address these concerns through legislation. Once again, I invite the industry to take the initiative on these issues, and to look to the public sector for support. For their part, I believe that supervisors have a special role to play in assessing incentives at the firm level and their possible implications for bank behavior and misconduct. Supervisors can mitigate misconduct risks by supporting the development of effective corporate governance regimes, prudent risk management policies, and strong compliance and control structures—all within a framework of effective oversight from the firm’s board of directors. Ultimately, establishing and maintaining an effective culture with appropriate risk governance and controls is the responsibility of individual firms and the industry, but the official sector can help by highlighting best practices and addressing collective action problems and other market failures. Areas where further work on incentives is warranted I would like to briefly touch on some areas where further work on incentives may be warranted, including regulatory changes that might address certain incentive and first-mover problems.

Of the many recommendations in this report, three are of particular importance to us at the Bank:  -  First, the consolidation of FPS, Bacs and the Cheque and Clearing Company into a new integrated retail payments scheme should ensure a strong systemic risk manager, governance body and procurer of a new generation of retail payments infrastructure for the UK as a whole. A Delivery Group, set up under the auspices of the UK authorities and with strong cross-industry membership, has already begun this important work. -  Second, moving the UK onto a common messaging standard for interbank payments – ISO 20022 – will make it much easier for the different systems to speak to one another and, where necessary, exchange payments or allow them to flow through seamlessly – so-called ‘interoperability’. -  Third, the proposal to develop a new Simplified Payments Platform for retail payments, if successfully translated into a workable design, offers the prospect of providing an integrated, agile infrastructure from which a wide variety of Payments Service Providers can launch innovative and secure products. But it is not only the retail payments architecture that is changing. At the start of this year, the Bank of England launched a strategic review of its own settlement platform, RTGS. RTGS provides the payments infrastructure that underpins CHAPS and CREST, and ensures that the major retail schemes can also settle in central bank money – processing some half a trillion pounds every day.
In oil exporting countries where growth has weakened and inflation has gone up by currency depreciation, banks with high foreign currency vulnerabilities or heavy reliance on short-term debt need close monitoring or tighter prudential requirements. Moreover, due to the different internal (growth and inflation) and external conditions (balance of payments strength), monetary policy positions have also diverged. Economies with current account deficits have been facing difficulties to balance internal pressures such as abovetarget inflation and slowdown in growth against reduced global capital inflows. These countries come to terms with limitations on countercyclical monetary policies to support the adversely affected domestic demand from tightened global financial conditions. On the other hand interest rates in other countries such as emerging Eastern European countries rates are at their historically low levels in order to avoid the disinflation imported from the Eurozone. EMEs with higher GDP growth, stronger external current account positions, lower inflation, and more liquid financial markets have managed to mitigate market volatility. Likewise, countries with more resilient financial sectors limited the adverse effects of volatility. As a result, out of 19 EMEs, 9 EM central banks have decreased the policy rate since the taper tantrum, 8 increased and 2 did not change. Overall, policy rate has increased 1070 bps. Along with the easing cycles of AEs central banks and ample global liquidity, the capital flows into EMEs have been increased which encouraged public and private leveraging and fueled credit growth in these countries. In response to the impact of the increased liquidity, EMEs implemented some macro-prudential policies.

The HKMA will continue to explore ways of expanding its application in two areas, namely:  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  I.  Cross-border transactions – we will explore with the Guangzhou and Shenzhen branches of The People’s Bank of China, and the Monetary Authority of Macao with a view to promoting the use and clearing of cross-border e-Cheques. II. Development of e-commerce – we will explore with the banking industry the use of eCheques in supporting e-commerce portals. While offering an additional option of payment for online shoppers, e-Cheques can also increase the efficiency of ecommerce operations. Acknowledgments 5. The launch of the e-Cheque reflects the continuous effort of banks in Hong Kong to provide a wide range of payment services. It also signifies the HKMA’s commitment in promoting the efficiency and modernisation of Hong Kong's financial infrastructure. Besides, the smooth development and launch of the e-Cheque has benefited immensely from the great support of relevant government departments. I.  Firstly, amendments to the Electronic Transactions Ordinance were finalised by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer in early 2015, giving electronic cheques the same legal status as physical cheques. The Pay e-Cheque portal was also launched on 7 December, which allows the public to make payments of government bills and fees with e-Cheques. II.
A framework for doing the latter is set out in the Basel Committee’s Sound Practices paper in the form of the two-dimensional matrix I described earlier, which assigns losses arising from the various loss event types to the major business lines of the bank. Conclusions Operational risk has many facets, and the events which give rise to it cover a huge range from highfrequency low-impact at one end to low-frequency high-impact at the other. There is a correspondingly wide range of controls and techniques that can be used to prevent or at least mitigate losses. Sound  BIS Review 33/2002  3  documentation lies at the more bread and butter end of the spectrum of such controls and techniques. But it is no less vital for all that. The Association is therefore to be congratulated for its initiative in putting in place an essential building block in the form of the standardised documentation that is being launched today. This will help to promote the development of the syndicated loan market in Hong Kong and in the region more generally, and will also serve the objective of enabling banks to better manage their operational risk. 4  BIS Review 33/2002

For instance, such systems would render the reconciliation of transaction and balance data between banks and a third-party system obsolete. The paradigm seems to have been turned on its head: decentralisation – not centralisation – now appears to promise the greatest efficiency gains. I do not, however, believe that decentralisation will become the ‘new normal’ in all financial market functions and infrastructures. Many existing financial market infrastructures are already highly competitive, and barriers to entry for new technology are correspondingly high. The conventional, centralised model they are built on is already low-cost and meets high safety standards. And improvements are being made all the time. Distributed ledger technology, meanwhile, has yet to prove it can outperform the existing set-up with respect to safety and efficiency. Having said this, there may be some scope for deploying distributed ledgers in certain complex financial market functions or infrastructures. The settlement and safekeeping of securities is one example. In the end, we may well see conventional and new technologies coexisting or blending. Staying with the securities example: it is conceivable that we will see a hybrid scenario. This could entail security-specific information being settled via a distributed ledger, while the payment leg could continue to be effected via a traditional, centralised payment system. 4 5  6  7  Cf. Diana Chan, Florence Fontan, Simonetta Rosati and Daniela Russo, ‘The Securities Custody Industry’, European Central Bank, Occasional Paper Series, No. 68, August 2007.
Prasarn Trairatvorakul: Global challenges, global solutions – IMFC issues Statement by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) Twenty-Third Meeting, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, 16 April 2011. * * * On behalf of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Lao P.D.R., Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga and Vietnam. Introduction 1. We thank Mr. Youssef Boutros-Ghali for his contributions to the IMFC, especially his leadership in completing the 2010 Quota and Governance reform. We congratulate Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on his appointment as the new Chairman. With his rich experience in understanding the interests of advanced and emerging market countries, we have full confidence that Minister Tharman will be able to make significant progress in fostering a global consensus on many challenging policy issues. 2. Although the global recovery has gained strength since the last IMFC meeting, its prospect remains fragile as several downside risks continue to prevail. Having been successful in coordinating policies to contain the catastrophic damage from the global financial crisis, policymakers are now facing a more difficult task in forging a consensus on multilateral commitments for countries to take into account the impact of their policies on other members and the international monetary system (IMS). Such an agreement will not be easy to reach against the current backdrop of a multi-speed recovery and asymmetry in domestic policy requirements.

This has also served to reinforce the Government's objective to enhance the efficiency of the public delivery system. This collaboration has resulted in the acceptance of the use of cards including the ATM card, which also functions as a debit card, for over the counter services and the offering of payment services via Internet banking and the Internet-based Financial Process Exchange (FPX) payment system. Another initiative undertaken has been the review of the remittance and e-money regulatory framework to encourage the introduction of payment products that would cater for the unbanked and underserved communities such as migrant workers and consumers with low  2  BIS Review 69/2008  income and low financial literacy and who may have no alternative but to rely on informal payment service providers. There are now more than 20 new remittance and mobile payment products that have been launched. The Bank has already engaged the relevant stakeholders on the priority areas identified and welcomes any further industry efforts to address these issues. Given the significant pay-offs from the low cost technologies in accelerating the adoption of electronic payment, the mobile phone is identified as one of the delivery channels that should be leveraged on. Potential of mobile phones to make the transformation Bank Negara Malaysia sees tremendous promise in mobile telecommunication networks as an electronic payment channel since mobile phones are already in the hands of most Malaysians, with 88% of the Malaysian population subscribing to mobile phone services.
Finally, the re-pricing of assets in world equity and bond markets have created unfavorable conditions for raising capital and have, to some extent, held back consumption through the negative wealth effects. Access to world capital markets has become more limited for developing countries and we have observed a major reduction in capital flows into these countries. Over the past few months, the external environment seems to have deteriorated quite considerably. The events of September 11th and the developments thereafter have put global financial markets on edge while exacerbating the already weak US economy, primarily through the effect on consumer confidence. Global demand continues to stagnate while difficulties in Latin America have heightened market uncertainty, increased investor’s risk aversion and tightened financing to emerging markets. In such a situation, it is important for the Government to come forward and play a major role in stabilizing and supporting the economy. In this light, I believe that the authorities here in Thailand have done a  BIS Review 99/2001  1  commendable job in providing the economy with timely fiscal support while adhering to fiscal discipline. Fiscal policy has been expansionary and the decision to increase budget spending this year was warranted. The central government deficit of 159 billion baht (equivalent to 3.2 percent of GDP) for the 2001 fiscal year provided the needed support for economic activity and the budget disbursement rate of 88.4 percent relative to the targeted 89 percent was an improvement from the past.

Investment on the contrary has fallen less than expected due to the dynamism in specific sectors (energy, public transportation) while its fundamentals continue to anticipate a weak performance. In this context, long-term interest rates have resumed an upward trend since the beginning of September, with 10-year peso rates close to 7% and indexed rates at 2.6%. These levels were observed in October 2021 and before that in February 2011. Most of this recent increase is related to external financial conditions. Consumer interest rates are at 28%, while commercial rates are around 15%, values not seen for more than a decade. Meanwhile, housing rates remain at just over 4%. Real 2  Bilateral Meetings  commercial and consumer loans fell by more than 2.2% and 3.0%, while housing loans grew by 2%. Projections and monetary policy decisions  A key driver for declining inflation is that the economy continues with the adjustment process which started this year, after the large imbalances it accumulated in 2021. In our forecasts, the economy will begin to contract in annual terms from the end of the third quarter of 2022 and continue to do so in 2023. This will keep the activity gap in negative territory for several quarters, which is consistent with the spending adjustment required to reduce inflation to the 3% target within two years. The spending adjustment will also reduce the high level of the current account deficit.
For the fiscal union, finding the balance between cooperation and diversity is difficult. National preferences for taxing and spending are stronger, and the case for elevating certain functions to the European level is more complex. And there can be no taxation without representation, meaning any shift to a more European fiscal policy must be accompanied by the same shift towards European democratic control. So to frame the discussion, I think it is helpful to recall the taxonomy of economic policy functions described by Richard Musgrave. He distinguished between stabilisation, allocation  3  Schoenmaker, D., (2011). “The financial trilemma,” Economics Letters, vol. 111, pages 57–59, April. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  and distribution. Broadly speaking, stabilisation helps smooth the business cycle, allocation ensures that resources are used efficiently and distribution ensures an equitable sharing of income. Stabilisation Concentrating on stabilisation, there is a long-standing debate in Europe about whether monetary union needs a federal budget to support counter-cyclical stabilisation. As you may know, the report by the four Presidents on a genuine EMU suggested that a small fiscal capacity could be used for this purpose. I do not want to comment on the specifics of this proposal, but there are questions about whether national preferences are sufficiently aligned to permit it. For that reason, we have to think carefully about whether it is essential for the euro area. In particular, we have to consider how having a genuine banking union might change the debate.

Jarle Bergo: Oil revenues, monetary policy and economic cycles Lecture by Mr Jarle Bergo, Deputy Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Telemark University College, Bø, 13 November 2002. The text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The lecture is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 30 October and on previous speeches. *  *  *  Petroleum activities constitute an important part of the Norwegian economy. A sound economic policy and high oil prices have contributed to the highest current account and budget surpluses that have been recorded in any OECD country. In 1998 when oil prices were down to USD 10 per barrel, we also recorded a surplus that came to 4 per cent of GDP measured in terms of government net financial investment. Societies that suddenly gain access to wealth have a tendency to spend the money and then fall into decline. Access to an abundance of natural resources can result in slower growth. The explanation may be that time and resources are spent on grabbing as large a share as possible of the acquired wealth. Historical experience therefore suggests that it is important to have decision-making systems to provide protection against individual groups gaining strong control over Norway’s petroleum wealth. In addition we must maintain and develop incentives to acquire knowledge and engage in innovative work.
James McAndrews: Mortgage contract design – implications for households, monetary policy, and financial stability Opening remarks by Mr James McAndrews, Executive Vice President and Director of Research of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the “Mortgage Contract Design: Implications for Households, Monetary Policy, and Financial Stability” Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 21 May 2015. *  *  *  The views expressed in this speech are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or of the Federal Reserve System. Accompanying charts can be found at the end of the speech. Good morning, and welcome to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Today is the second and final day of our conference on mortgage contract design. We are hosting this conference, in association with the NYU Stern Center for Real Estate Finance Research, because we view mortgage design as an important policy issue, with implications for monetary policy, household finance and risk management, as well as for the structure and stability of the financial system. Mortgage debt is, by far, the largest household financial liability. According to New York Fed data 1, mortgages and home equity lines of credit make up 73 percent of U.S. household debt, amounting to $ trillion in liabilities outstanding.

A risk-sharing argument may call for the effects of monetary policy to be more evenly spread across households. On the other hand, monetary policy might have to adjust interest rates more dramatically in a world of widespread FRMs, which would affect some potential borrowers a great deal. Furthermore, FRMs require an extensive financial-sector risk transfer system 10, which may be costly, and may concentrate risks in systemically risky ways. Thus, there are clearly many tradeoffs that need to be carefully considered. Moreover, as academic research has emphasized, optimal mortgage choice depends on a borrower’s characteristics and financial circumstances. It therefore seems desirable that the mortgage finance system makes a range of different contracts available to borrowers, and be open to sensible innovations in contract design. 11 Although I have focused on ARMs, interest rate adjustability is only one of many important aspects of mortgage design that will be considered in the discussions today. Another important issue, for example, is how home price movements are shared between the borrower and lender. Home price risk is already partially borne by lenders and other mortgage investors, since a fall in home prices increases mortgage defaults and  6  See Agarwal, Driscoll and Laibson, 2013, “Optimal Mortgage Refinancing: A Closed-Form Solution”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 591–622.
They matter because banks, dealers and funds rely on them in order to provide services to the rest of the economy, and also because they can increase fragilities in the system. They are perhaps represented best by what have become known as the “financing markets”: repo, securities lending, certificates of deposit etc – the markets that financial firms use to access short-term wholesale funding. The authorities’ engagement with them is, frankly, patchy. At one end of the spectrum, central bankers in particular have a good track record of ensuring the professionalism of core government-bond repo markets. That was not without good cause. When the US Treasury repo markets started in the mid-to-late 1970s, there was a string of scandals4. When the UK authorities opened up the way to a gilt repo market in the early-90s, therefore, we worked with the industry on the supporting hard and soft infrastructure, including a Code drawn up by the Stock Lending and Repo Committee, to avoid a repetition in London of Wall Street’s experience. It would be hard for the authorities to claim the same foresight concerning the wider securities lending or repo markets in recent years. The employment by securities lenders of cash collateral became a core but hugely opaque financing market in the run up to the latest crisis5. The run on repo, documented by Gary Gorton6, was how the US securities dealers unravelled. The authorities need to develop policies for monitoring and, where necessary, controlling these markets for providing leverage and maturity transformation.

The Basel Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems has published revised draft Principles for market infrastructures, including (Principle 24) that “A Trade Repository should provide timely and accurate data to relevant authorities and the public in line with their respective needs”. 19  See recommendations on bank provisioning in Chapter IV of FSB (2009), “Report of the FSB on Addressing Procyclicality in the Financial System”. Available at http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/publications/r_0904a.pdf  20  See Tucker P M W (2010), “Shadow Banking, Financing Markets and Financial Stability”, January 2010. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  In a world in which regulatory arbitrage is endemic, it is a fact of life that the re-regulation of banks will set up incentives to build banking-like functions in other forms. The import of this for my remarks today is that securities market regulators (and insurance regulators) need either to be relaxed about the supervision of shadow banks being transferred to banking supervisors or, alternatively, vigilant about maintaining regimes that do not permit systemic risk to accumulate beyond the perimeter of the banking system. In the UK’s planned new regulatory framework, the Financial Policy Committee will be responsible for recommending to the Treasury when prudential supervision of a type of firm should shift from the securities regulator to the prudential regulator (and vice versa); and it will be able to advise the FCA on when it needs to revise its rulebook in the interests of stability.