samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The key document as far as the HKMA is concerned is the Exchange of Letters between the Financial Secretary and the Monetary Authority on 25 June 2003. Given what was happening in Hong Kong at this time, it is perhaps not surprising that these letters did not attract too much publicity when they were published a few days later, although they were favourably noticed in the editorials and commentaries. Generally speaking, and with one important addition that I shall describe in a minute, the Exchange of Letters introduced no change to existing arrangements. Most of the contents set out the existing division of responsibility between the Financial Secretary and the Monetary Authority under the main laws governing the work of the HKMA. There is nothing particularly novel in any of this, although it is useful to have the division of work spelt out in one place. Anyone interested in knowing exactly what the HKMA does and how it connects with the rest of the Government need look no further than this for an authoritative statement. There are two aspects of the letter that are significant in what they say about the relationship between the HKMA and the rest of the Government. The first is the clear distinction between the setting of the monetary policy objective on the one hand and the achievement of that objective on the other. The former falls within the province of the Financial Secretary.

Recent developments indicate that market participants have either not been aware of existing best practices guidance or have made the conscious decision to violate such guidance in the hopes of making a short-term gain. The cost of these short-term gains has come at all of our expense and we must all be engaged to ensure that this does not happen again. Moving toward more globally harmonized guidance – and consistent adherence to such guidance – is an important step forward in maintaining the integrity of the market. In recognition of the importance of this work, a new working group of the BIS Markets Committee has been formed to facilitate the establishment of a single global code of conduct and principles and to promote greater adherence to such guidance. 14 This newly formed  13  See http://www.ny.frb.org/fxc/2015/Global%20Preamble%20March30.pdf. 14  See: http://www.bis.org/press/p150511.htm. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  structure will deepen and broaden the already initiated public-private partnership and will engage an even wider set of financial centers in order to effectively move this work on best practices forward. The work will occur on a global scale and will engage a wide variety of market infrastructures and participants, including both the buy side and sell side. It will likely draw upon a variety of efforts, including the important work done in the U.K. under the Fair and Effective Markets Review. The FXC will be actively engaged in this effort along with its counterparts abroad, at the direction of the BIS Markets Committee FX Working Group.
The White House Framework suggests that Government action may be necessary to ensure the safety and soundness of electronic payments systems, to protect consumers or to respond to important law-enforcement objectives. Of course, the White House would work closely with the private sector to inform policy development and ensure that governmental activities flexibly accommodate the needs of the emerging market-place. From a central bank perspective, one of the most fundamental questions raised by electronic payments is its impact on monetary policy, especially if its development is as widespread as some have predicted. In the near term, it appears that Internet payments systems will not significantly impact monetary policy. For the most part, the Internet and other communication networks are currently being used to facilitate existing banking transactions using traditional banking settlement channels. Most payments over the Internet simply result in the movement of funds from a bank account in one institution to one in the same or another bank. This should have few, if any, implications on the conduct of United States monetary policy or the measurement of the United States money supply. “Money” as defined by M1, M2, or M3, would still be held in accounts at banks and would be reported to the Federal Reserve through existing reporting mechanisms. If, however, Internet payments evolve to the point where digital “coins” or other private electronic money begin to be widely used and circulated like Federal Reserve bank notes, the potential implications for monetary policy could be much greater.

Richard W Fisher: Policies needed to restore American prosperity Concluding remarks by Mr Richard W Fisher, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, before the Dallas and Fort Worth chapters of Financial Executives International, Dallas, Texas, 11 February 2014. *  *  *  The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System. Related slides can be found on the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ website: Slides (PDF). For far too long, the greatest obstacle to the nation’s economic prosperity has resided here:  An editorial in today’s Financial Times encapsulated in 11 words an argument I have been making repeatedly: “Fiscal policy is still not an ally of U.S. growth.”1 I’ll conclude by making the argument once more. Earlier I showed you the gaping hole in the heart of our prosperity: If you remove the jobcreating machine of Texas from the U.S. economy, the nation has experienced job destruction that has occurred over the past 12 years in the middle-income quartiles. Let me show you that chart again:  1  See “Yellen must not be bullied by Congress,” Financial Times, p. 8, Feb. 11, 2014. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  I never refer to “classes”; I do not believe status in a democracy should be defined by the hidebound concept of “classes.” But no matter: The most vital organ of our nation’s economy – the middle-income worker – is being eviscerated.
Settlement risks  BIS Review 46/1999  2  with repo transactions, however, are significantly lower because in our system, collateral must only be transferred between accounts by the central securities depository. This is a simple and straightforward process which - if necessary - could even be implemented manually. Consequently, we encourage banks to pay special attention to their holdings of repo collateral when engaging in their liquidity planning. Furthermore, we will considerably expand our repo basket by including selected foreign currency securities. This step which is primarily motivated by our intention to transact also with counterparties abroad obviously produces a useful sideeffect on collateral availability over year-end. It is our clear commitment to provide liquidity sufficient to smooth market developments before and at the transition. Of course, all banks, especially those which do not engage in repo transactions, can avail themselves of significantly increased lombard limits just for the year-end, if they wish so. As regards the distribution and the available stock of banknotes, we have made the necessary provisions. After having put a new banknote series into circulation recently, our inventories are more abundant than they would have to be even in a worst-case scenario. Final remarks Let me conclude by making two final remarks. Firstly, the need for successful active and reactive communication can hardly be overestimated. The millennium has an almost magical fascination which may stimulate crisis fantasies and is perfectly capable of triggering herd effects.

Two such advantages stand out: -  The collective efforts of our banking sector are governed by a natural leadership structure which facilitates and accelerates development processes,  -  and, secondly, the two big players act in some measure as know-how brokers, swiftly incorporating the Year 2000 experiences gained abroad into the process of solving the problem in this country. More generally speaking, our long tradition of practical cooperation between competitors and of close ties between regulators and banks is a distinct plus in the preparatory work. Jointly managed institutions like the Swiss Exchange, our central securities depository, or the Swiss Interbank Clearing System are well-known examples of this spirit of cooperation. 1  BIS Review 46/1999  I am confident that the large-scale interbank tests scheduled to begin in May will provide us with a positive picture of the state of preparations. Assuring liquidity From the viewpoint of a central banker, assuring adequate liquidity must be the prime concern. Based on the nature of their business, banks are inherently vulnerable. Withdrawals and redistribution of deposits can jeopardise the banks’ capacity to pay. Such effects, should they materialise at all, may take place as a millennium shadow before or during entering the next millennium. It is primarily the duty of individual banks to brace themselves for such events. They must undertake careful liquidity planning, comprising both a normal scenario as well as different stress scenarios.
But they do not say anything about preparedness regarding liquidity in foreign currencies. This is particularly important to us in Sweden. Around 50 per cent of the banks’ funding is through the markets, and a large part, around two thirds, through the international markets. This requires that we at the Riksbank can provide the banks with liquidity in foreign currency when funding runs short. We must therefore hold liquid funds in our foreign currency reserves, and this costs money. The Riksbank is thus supplying an insurance – an insurance that the banks know they can use but don’t pay a premium for. This type of problem is not dealt with in the Basel regulations, or anywhere else for that matter, but it is something we need to discuss here in Sweden. So although I hope I have made it clear that neither Finansinspektionen nor we at the Riksbank – nor our international counterparts – have been idle, there is still a lot of work that remains to be done to make the bank system less vulnerable and more resilient. Both globally and here in Sweden. And at the same time we must continue our daily work on maintaining financial stability. We at the Riksbank are constantly trying to refine our analysis so we can detect at an early stage any risks that could threaten the stability of the system. And we must be clear in communicating the risks we see.

In other cases, there was a change in the relationships between prices and other factors that had been previously observed. The calculated probabilities quite simply did not reflect the reality. It is easy to make a comparison with Swedish humorist Tage Danielsson’s classical sketch about the probability of a nuclear accident: as Harrisburg had just happened, there was absolutely no risk that history would repeat itself. Or to look at it another way, as the complicated financial instruments had previously escaped sudden price falls, one need not expect any sudden price fall in the future. Slightly exaggerated. Underestimating risks and taking excessive risks are two sides of the same coin. And this was just what happened, right up until the US house price bubble burst and the crisis was upon us. It is thus clear that there is a need to ensure that risk management is tightened and that the deficiencies in the banks’ balance sheets are corrected. The Basel Committee therefore requires that the banks assume that many financial instruments – including the derivatives I just mentioned – are much riskier than the banks previously assumed. So under the new regulations the banks must leave a good margin for substantial losses possibly arising when they buy and sell risky instruments. Moreover, the Basel Committee is introducing a new risk measure – a leverage ratio. Behind this term lies a fairly simple measure of risk that is not based on any advanced risk calculation models.
1, No. 1, pp. 26–57. Galí, J. and M. Gertler (1999), “Macroeconomic Modelling for Monetary Policy Evaluation,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 25–45. Hall, P. (2011), “Is There Evidence of a Greenspan Put?,” Swiss National Bank Working Paper, 2011-6. Kim, C.-J. and C. Nelson (1999), “Has the U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based on a Markov Switching Model of the Business Cycle,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 81, N° 4, pp. 608–616. Miller, M., P. Weller and L. Zhang (2001), “Moral Hazard and the US Stock Market: Analyzing the Greenspan Put,” CSGR Working Paper 83/01, The University of Warwick. Stock, J. and M. Watson (2003), “Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?,” Macroeconomics Annual 2002, MIT Press. Svensson, L.E.O. (1997), “Inflation Forecast Targeting: Implementing and Monitoring Inflation Targets,” European Economic Review, Vol. 41, pp. 1111–1146. Taylor, John B. (1998), “Monetary Policy and the Long Boom: The Homer Jones Lecture,” Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, November/December, pp. 3–11. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7

In Malaysia, the progress in this area has been facilitated by the common law which forms the foundation of the legal system. More specifically, the concept of "trust" under the common law has facilitated the issuance of Islamic securities such as sukuk and Islamic Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Since "trust" as an inherent notion embedded in the common law system is not generally found in the jurisprudence of civil law, some civil law countries have enacted specific legislation to provide for the introduction of trust so as to align their legal systems with the requirements of Islamic finance. The challenges brought by the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system While legal issues within a domestic financial system can be resolved by the home regulators and Shariah authorities, the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system brings with it many challenges. There is a need for mutual recognition of financial standards and products across jurisdictions. The progressive harmonisation of Shariah, in this respect, needs to be viewed as a driver towards greater international financial integration. Such a convergence and harmonisation can only happen with greater engagement among the regulators, practitioners and scholars in Islamic finance in the international community. The Annual International Shariah Scholars' Dialogue that has been taking place since 2005 is aimed at achieving this objective. This Dialogue has served to promote interactions between Shariah scholars from around the world contributing towards greater understanding and international convergence.
Strategic decisions about the future needs to be made to sustain the ability to offer and deliver unique value propositions to customers whilst at the same time effectively managing customers’ expectations. An area that banking institutions may venture into is micro-financing. Micro-enterprises perform an important economic activity for a large segment of the country’s population. While institutional arrangements are being put in place to increase access to financing for such micro-enterprises, the banking sector with its large network of branches can become an important channel for such financing. 4  BIS Review 28/2004  These could be provided via a micro-financing window. Global experience has shown that such microfinancing operations can be successful and profitable with good loan portfolio quality. As part of the efforts to raise the quality performance in the financial services sector, Bank Negara Malaysia initiated a nation-wide survey in 2003 to assess the requirements, expectations and the satisfaction level of consumers on the quality of products and services offered by banking institutions. While the primary objective of the study is to develop an index on the levels of quality of customer service, the findings indicate that the real issues in enhancing the industry’s level of performance goes beyond this, towards developing a stronger customer-centric orientation. The findings provide a discernable indication of the differences in customer needs and requirements, and identify specific areas where customer-orientation issues tend to arise. Let me briefly share some of the key findings of the survey.

Countries with cost-advantages, driven by technology and innovation, have been able to attain  6  The Consumer Finances and Socio-economic Survey Report 2003/04 – Part I, Central Bank of Sri Lanka p. 66  7  World Development Report, 2006, Table 3, pp 296-7  BIS Review 4/2007  5  specialization in sub-components of given final industrial products which are assembled in global factories. As reported by the World Bank 8 , the Ford Escort Motor Car which is finally assembled in the UK or Germany, had main components manufactured in 15 different countries. In the modern production processes, it has been observed that product development relating to personal computers takes place in USA. The components for them are manufactured in Taiwan. The final assembly takes place in Malaysia. The marketing is undertaken in Singapore. The inquiries relating to the products are handled by call centers in India. It, therefore, behooves developing countries like Sri Lanka to be a part of this ‘global factory process’ in order to raise their industrial production capacity and wealth. But the prime pre-requisite for that is the existence of a vibrant and dynamic services sector equipped with a free flow of information and capacity to impart knowledge on time. In other words, the modern industry cannot survive or sustain without services. Hence, any attempt at developing industry in isolation would drain it of a vital requirement for growth and sustenance, viz., competitive advantage.
In a comparison with a number of other inflation-targeting countries, it is evident that Swedish inflation was closest to the target level last year, measured as an annual average, and that it was fairly average with regard to deviations from the target level. As monetary policy’s effect on inflation has a time lag, the outcome of inflation in 2003 is largely a result of the monetary policy conducted in 2001 and 2002. Let me therefore report some of our considerations in the light of the developments and forecasts made then. At the beginning of 2001 the repo rate was 4 per cent. During the spring there was a severe depreciation of the krona. Despite the fact that economic activity in Sweden and abroad was in a weakening phase, domestic resource utilisation was at a high level, while inflation had increased significantly during the spring and exceeded the upper tolerance limit. Inflation expectations had also begun to rise. Given this, we raised the repo rate in summer 2001. Economic developments and monetary policy considerations in Sweden differed from those in many other countries, where monetary policy in many cases had begun to be more expansionary. The decision to raise the interest rate in July 2001 was not self-evident. Three Executive Board members entered reservations against the decision, with reference to the weakening economic activity. The terrorist actions in September 2001 caused us to cut the rate by half a percentage point. Our assessment was that confidence among both households and firms would deteriorate.

However, these averages hide relatively strong fluctuations over the course of the year. At the beginning of 2003 inflation rose rapidly and during a couple of months it actually exceeded the upper tolerance limit of 3 per cent. However, it had fallen back by May and was once again in line with the 2 per cent target. The downturn continued throughout the remainder of the year, particularly for CPI inflation. The fact that CPI inflation fell more than UND1X inflation was due to the interest rate cuts made earlier in the year. In December, CPI inflation was 1.4 per cent, while UND1X was 1.7 per cent. The upturn at the beginning of the year was mainly due to rising electricity prices caused by supply problems in the hydroelectric power companies’ reservoirs and by unusually high demand resulting from a cold winter. Oil prices also rose and contributed to the higher inflation rate. The high energy prices had an impact on several sub-components of the CPI. For instance, housing costs and various prices linked to transportation activities rose unusually quickly during the spring. When adjusted for energy prices, the path of inflation in 2003 was much more stable and remained within the interval of 1.2-1.9 per cent. Small deviations from target Despite the fact that inflation fluctuated substantially over the year, we can conclude that the average CPI deviation from target level was relatively small in an historical perspective; around half a percentage point, compared with approximately one percentage point during the period 1995-2002.
Concluding remarks Let me finish with some short reflections. After several years of heavy turbulences and natural disasters, the Chilean economy is on a very good standing to continue on a path of sustained growth. Price stability has been preserved, preventing inflation from affecting the purchasing power of citizens, especially those with less income and thus less capability to protect themselves against this menace. Growth has consolidated, pushing the rate of job creation to levels we had not seen in years. The contribution of monetary policy to this good performance is unquestionable. It has been flexible enough to be able to be applied when facing sharp changes in the economic environment, with no unnecessary dogma or rigidities. In order for this process to continue over time it needs to be balanced and operate in the context of an inflation rate in line with the target. Otherwise it will become just an unsustainable acceleration calling for drastic adjustments with its related costs in lost output and employment. Evidently, as a country we continue to face challenges, particularly related to maintain sustainable growth rates for long periods and not create tensions on price stability. Guaranteeing low and stable inflation is the best contribution that the Central Bank of Chile can make to prosperity in this new century of independent life that is beginning for our Republic. Thank you.

Whatever the future may bring, I will be guided by our dual mandate, a heavy dependence on data, and a steadfast commitment to transparency. Such an approach, in my view, will help support prosperity both in the United States and abroad. Thank you. 1 See FOMC Statement and Implementation Note, September 26, 2018. 2 See FOMC Statement and Implementation Note, September 26, 2018. 3 See FOMC Statement and Implementation Note, September 26, 2018. 4 See Jerome H. Powell, Monetary Policy in a Changing Economy, August 24, 2018. 5 See FOMC issues addendum to the Policy Normalization Principles and Plans, June 14, 2017. 6 See Simon Potter, Confidence in the Implementation of U.S. Monetary Policy Normalization, August 4, 2018. 7 See Policy Normalization Principles and Plans, as adopted effective September 16, 2014. 8 See Simon Potter, Confidence in the Implementation of U.S. Monetary Policy Normalization, August 4, 2018. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches