samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Mr Duisenberg outlines the future development of the financial sector in the euro area Speech by Willem F Duisenberg, President of the European Central Bank, at the XXIVth IOSCO Annual Conference in Lisbon on 25 May 1999. Introduction The euro area constitutes a large economy, of a size comparable to that of the United States. That fact alone places the euro and the euro area financial system firmly “centre stage” in the global economy. Consequently, it is essential for the euro area financial system to be stable and efficient, not only for the benefit of the euro area economy itself, but also for the world economy. The introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 had a profound impact on financial systems both within and outside the euro area. Part of this impact was immediately evident in the rapid integration of money markets and the replacement of national currencies by the euro in foreign exchange markets. The fact that the changeover to the euro progressed smoothly is a reassuring indication that the euro area financial system is able to remain stable during times of structural change. However, a further part of the impact on financial systems – most likely the greater part – will be experienced over a longer period of time. The euro is likely to become one of the major factors reshaping both the domestic financial system of the euro area and the global financial system.

Area-wide equity indices have been made available by various market participants, thus providing investors with opportunities to monitor area-wide equity positions as well as, in some instances, positions in area-wide industrial sectors. The fact that the euro area (and EU) equity markets are becoming more integrated, more liquid and deeper is good for market efficiency, and a more efficient allocation of capital should mean that equity financing becomes more readily available for companies. I should also like to mention that a prudent, harmonised regulatory framework, on the one hand, and harmonised market practices, on the other, are key factors guaranteeing a favourable outcome for these structural changes. In these areas a lot of work is under way, and much has still to be achieved in order to pave the way for truly integrated financial markets. Harmonisation in, for example, repurchase agreements, national company laws including bankruptcy laws, and other aspects of the legal and regulatory framework, would enhance legal clarity and certainty and thereby improve the efficiency and stability of the financial markets. Indeed, the European Commission recently published an Action Plan containing priorities and timetables for measures aimed at improving the single market for financial services. In the Action Plan, measures are proposed to advance the harmonisation of the legal framework and market information, as well as to facilitate investors’ operations throughout the single market. In this respect, I should also like to pay tribute to the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) for its efforts.
If you may recall, the key takeaway from my talk last year is that the Thai economy is like a car which has good suspension, but whose engine is in need of an overhaul in order to move faster. Our sound external position and strong financial institutions are analogous to that good suspension, which has so far afforded us a smooth ride on the bumpy road of global financial volatility. It has been almost a year since our last check-up, and as it has indeed been an eventful year, I would like to start my talk today by revisiting how the conditions of our car have developed since then. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss how the Bank of Thailand will contribute to the engine overhauling process – along with the private sector and the government which have already launched several initiatives. In the span of just 8 months since my last Thailand Focus address, the global economy has gone through several turbulent periods. If you all may recall, on the first working day of the year, the Shanghai Stock Index fell by 7%, with two circuit breakers triggered in one day. Crude oil prices saw a steady rise from below 30 USD per barrel to over 50 USD, before being struck in a back-and-forth market within the 40 to 50 USD range. Besides, we have again witnessed multiple rounds of volatility in the global financial markets as a result of shifting expectations of the Fed’s rate hikes.

On top of the promotion of e-commerce, PromptPay together with other e-Payment initiatives, for example shared point of sales (POS) terminals, digital tax messaging, standardized QR codes, will lead to significant reduction in costs of cash management and paper processing, currently borne by banks, businesses, consumers, as well as the Bank of Thailand. In addition, the move from cash-based transactions to more electronic-based transactions can potentially reduce incidences of corruption and improve governance through greater transparency. On the regulatory front, an important development is the crafting of the Payment System Act which aims to consolidate fragmented laws and regulations governing electronic payments. The Act will set out business rules and regulatory framework for our payment systems that meet international standards. To date, the Act has been endorsed by the cabinet and expected to soon be presented to the National Legislative Assembly. Let me say a few words about FinTech. We view FinTech as an important addition to our  financial service ecosystem. FinTech would give consumers more options and save operating costs for financial institution and service providers. On a bright side, FinTech firms are agile and efficient by nature. Yet allowing certain types of them to run freely may destabilize the ecosystem. We need to promote financial innovation while ensuring that potential risks from its misuse would not contribute to systemic risks’ build-up. Equally important, there needs to be adequate consumer protection. The Bank of Thailand aims to foster a symbiosis between FinTech and our current financial ecosystem.
[24] The same protections do not exist at the global level or are much weaker in other regional trading blocs such as NAFTA. The history of the United States itself illustrates the difficulty of aligning the approaches of individual states to improve working conditions. In the early 20th century, there was a growing concern in several US states about the lack of a social safety net, especially for the elderly. But individual states feared that providing social security would impose, in the words of the time, “a heavy tax burden on the industries of the state that would put them at a disadvantage in competition with neighboring states unburdened by a pension system.”[25] The lack of coordination created a severe underprovision of social security, which was exacerbated by the Great Depression. In 1934, half of the population over 65 were in poverty. [26] This was only resolved through the passing of the federal Social Security Act in 1935, which enabled states to coordinate in providing social security. In a similar way, the EU provides a powerful coordination function that allows countries to achieve goals that they could not realise alone. And the EU is able in turn to export some of its 4 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  standards globally. The EU is the top trading partner of 80 countries, compared with just over 20 for the United States. [27] That allows the EU to insist on higher labour and product standards abroad via trade agreements,[28]as well as protecting local producers at home.

As Jean Monnet said, “we need a Europe for that which is essential … a Europe for what nations cannot do alone.”[1]  Sovereignty in an interconnected world On the whole, European citizens appear to welcome the benefits brought about by economic integration through the EU. [2] The free movement of people, goods and services – that is, the Single Market – is routinely seen by citizens as the EU’s most positive achievement. In the euro area, 75% of people are in favour of the euro and Monetary Union, and 71% of Europeans support the EU’s common trade policy. Yet at the same time, public attitudes towards the EU’s political structures seem to be hardening. Average trust in the EU stands at 42%, down from 57% in 2007. This decline has taken place against the backdrop of a general loss of faith in public institutions. Trust in national governments and parliaments has dropped to just 35%. This tension between economic integration and political cooperation is fuelled by a powerful belief that there is an inherent trade-off between EU membership and the ability of countries to exercise sovereignty. In this way of thinking, if citizens want to be able to exert more control over their destinies, they have to loosen the EU’s political structures. But this belief is wrong. It is wrong because it conflates independence with sovereignty.
We also need to ensure the harmonised application of banking regulations in all Banking Union countries, and avoid the risk of fragmentation, which would reduce the expected benefits of a union. It is also vital to strengthen the integration of European financial markets. The action plan for the Capital Markets Union, launched by the Commission in 2015, has allowed a few advances to be made, with the creation of European cross-border funds and a pan-European retirement savings product. We must go even further on this, and create a genuine Financing Union for Investment and Innovation, that would better channel Europe’s savings surplus (3% of GDP) towards productive investment, by shoring up companies’ capital and increasing their ability to develop and innovate. For this, we need to (i) facilitate cross-border investment by harmonising accounting, tax and bankruptcy rules; (ii) develop incentives for equity financing; (iii) develop European securities and savings products (venture capital funds, green bonds, securitised portfolios, etc.) aimed at providing long-term, diversified financing to Member States. Finally, with its strong international commitment on climate issues, Europe must play its full role in initiatives to tackle the risks linked to climate change. The Banque de France was one of the founders of the NGFS or Network for the Greening of the Financial System, and provides secretariat services for the platform which now has 42 members and 8 observers, representing 5 continents.

Ten years after Lehman Brothers, the financial system is now safer The crisis that followed the Lehman collapse demonstrated the importance of a sound financial system that could withstand shocks without hampering the financing of the economy. The economies that, after a macroeconomic shock, suffer a financial shock because their banking sector is too fragile, experience more serious and protracted crises. This lesson led to a vast reform programme of financial system regulation and supervision in order to address the many shortcomings that led to the development of significant vulnerabilities. 1.1 MANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS IN THE REGULATORY AND SUPERVISORY FRAMEWORK HAVE BEEN REDUCED A comprehensive reform was thus carried out, covering practically all the areas of the financial system, focusing on four main areas:  (a) Shoring up the resilience of financial institutions For banks, under the impetus of the G20 and the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the Basel Committee has established new prudential rules, “Basel III", whose main features aim to enhance the level and quality of capital, limit the use of financial leverage and introduce new liquidity requirements. These rules must ensure that banks are able to cope with short-term pressures on their refinancing and regulate their transformation activity. Lastly, the framework introduces for the first time a “macroprudential” component, consisting of a countercyclical capital buffer and a surcharge for global systemically important banks (additional capital and leverage ratio). Most G20 jurisdictions have adopted this framework.
Denny H Kalyalya: High performance leadership Opening speech by Dr Denny H Kalyalya, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Opening of the High Performance Leadership Workshop, Lusaka, 9 August 2010. *  *  *    Chairperson    Workshop facilitators from MCA International    Directors and Assistant Directors    Other Participants    Ladies and gentlemen  On behalf of Bank of Zambia Senior Management and indeed on my own behalf, I wish to welcome you all to this important workshop, on High Performance Leadership, organized by our Human Resources Department in conjunction with MCA International. I commend the Human Resources Department for taking the initiative to organise this workshop, which is intended to facilitate exchange of information and views on appropriate leadership attributes to help us enhance our performance as leaders in our respective positions. Ladies and gentlemen, as you are aware, our key role as a central bank is to deliver low and stable prices and maintain financial system stability. In spite of the global economic downturn, our country is enjoying relative economic stability, with good prospects for the future following the recent and on-going significant economic transformation of our economy. Due to implementation of appropriate macroeconomic policies: i. The country has registered positive real GDP growth for the past 10 years and over the last five years, real GDP growth rate has averaged 6% annually;  ii. Inflation and exchange rates developments have also been favourable.

Those techniques are tried and tested in the US, and are the basis for resolutions of regular commercial banks in many other countries. They do not involve taxpayer solvency support. I am doubtful, however, whether those established techniques would work for a complex investment bank or a global commercial bank. Universal banks are typically run on an integrated basis, across functions and regions, so that capital can be reallocated easily as opportunities shift around. It would be a nightmare to execute over a weekend a split of any of these groups, with multiple entities across scores of countries, into those parts providing services that must be sustained at all costs and a remainder that could be wound down as part of a resolution. Moreover, this is not just a matter of critical versus not-so-critical services. Even if, contrary to my doubts, it were possible to execute that separation in the midst of a crisis, winding down a complex trading book would be hugely hazardous, with very nasty spillovers to the rest of the financial system. Quite separately, P&A techniques might also fall short in handling the failure of mediumsized commercial banks in highly concentrated banking systems. Crudely, there may be few or even no potential buyers of the deposit book in such circumstances. That is the background to the so-called ‘bailin’ technique which, within the official sector, takes its inspiration from the way insolvency practitioners effect a capital restructuring of distressed but viable non-financial firms – for example, Chapter XI in the US.
8  Lastly, in the case of consumer prices, the scenarios presented in September envisaged that, following the notable slowdown in recent months, the headline inflation rate would be negative for 2020 as a whole (-0.2% under scenario 1 and -0.3% under scenario 2). In the following two years it would only rise very gradually (to 1% and 1.2% under scenario 1 and to 0.8% and 1.1% under scenario 2), underpinned by the progressive recovery in aggregate demand and some quickening in the energy component of prices. Yet since these scenarios were released in September, various indicators have been published which enable their current validity to be assessed, albeit qualitatively. In any event, the Banco de España will update its forecasts in December, in a joint exercise with the Eurosystem. First, it is important to note that the INE’s preliminary estimate for the quarter-on-quarter GDP growth rate for Q3 a few days ago was, at 16.7%, practically in line with the rate estimated in early September in the context of scenario 1 (16.6%). However, as I pointed out earlier, a wide range of indicators would suggest that the recovery progressively lost momentum in Q3. This would essentially be related to the rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 infections observed in Spain in recent months.

In any event, looking ahead, the public pension system will face additional pressures on the spending side, stemming from a significant expected increase in the population of retirement age, relative to the population of working age, owing to demographic factors.10 Reforms made in recent years have addressed these pressures; among other measures, a gradual raising of the retirement age, a sustainability factor linking initial pensions to future life expectancy developments, and a new pension adjustment mechanism that takes into account the system’s balance have been introduced. These reforms represent a considerable improvement to the system’s financial sustainability. However, in the absence of further changes to the system’s revenues, strict application of the new adjustment mechanism will give rise to systematic decreases in pensioners’ real income. Also, according to the various estimates available, eliminating the new adjustment index and returning to inflation indexed pensions, as recommended by the Toledo Pact Commission, would generate an increase in pension spending of around 3 pp of GDP over the period to 2050.11 Moreover, the date on which the sustainability factor (which adjusts the initial pension amount in accordance with life expectancy developments) will begin to be applied has been put back from 2018 to 2023 at the earliest. According to AIReF calculations, the introduction  10  My address at the meeting of the Toledo Pact Commission last September was devoted to analysing this issue.
Caleb M Fundanga: How the Bank of Zambia’s policies are impacting Eastern Province developments Remarks by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry Open Meeting, Chipata, 17 January 2008. *  *  *  • The Chairman – Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EPCCI) • Members of the Executive Committee – EPCCI • EPCCI Members • Invited Guests • Ladies and Gentlemen First and foremost, I must state that I am pleased to have finally made the trip to Eastern Province under the invitation of the EPCCI. The visit was planned for last year but due to other commitments I could not make it. In this regard, I made it a point to make sure that I visit the province before the end of the first quarter. I am happy that we have actualized our plans during the first month. It is our hope that we will also be able to visit other provincial towns off the line of rail during the course of the year. Mr. Chairman, one may question what is the purpose of the Bank of Zambia to visit these outlying areas? The answer is simple and is drawn from our mission statement – which is “to formulate and implement monetary and supervisory policies that will ensure price and financial system stability”. Our visit is therefore, to enable us assess the extent to which our policies are impacting development in the Eastern Province.

The completion of the Mchinji Railway project must therefore be expeditiously dealt with. As a country we need to seek more export ventures in terms of products and markets. It is important to note that by November 2007, year-to-date non-traditional exports had increased by 25.6% to $ million from $ million recorded during the corresponding period in 2006. Our statistics show that burley tobacco and cotton lint have had a significant contribution to the non-traditional export figures in the years 2005 and 2006 (although indications are that for the year 2007, the figures will be lower after farmers opted to plant maize given the lower prices offered for their tobacco and cotton produce). Ladies and gentlemen, with the improved economic activity in Eastern Province, we have noted an increased demand for cash through the sub-chest run by Barclays Bank Zambia Plc. This has been exemplified by fewer deposits at the sub-chest each successive period. Our investigations have revealed that this is driven by the high intensity of cash transactions within the region, largely because very few people, particularly the small-scale farmers, have bank accounts. We implore you to encourage the use of non-cash payments for your transactions. It is not only a safer means of transacting but it also enables the authorities to keep track of the level of economic activity in the area. In this regard, we also ask that the commercial banks design products and services whose cost structures are suitable for the economic environment of the region.
But what might scare people the most is not necessarily what we should focus on the most. Transition risks, the ones related to the adjustment towards a low-carbon economy, are less visible long-term risks that have not yet materialised. Nevertheless, we need to be prepared for these as well. Transition costs and uncertainties about the winners and losers will certainly create strong market volatility and lead to adverse aggregate macroeconomic outcomes. According to our first estimates made by the ACPR – the French supervisor –, 11 13% of French banks’ total net credit exposure is to sectors vulnerable to transition risks. The DNB conducted a similar exercise and found roughly the same exposure for Dutch lenders.12 Financial institutions may object that the timeframe for the materialisation of these risks is far beyond their investment horizon and the average maturity of their balance sheets. They may argue that their exposures can be adjusted progressively if needed. In my view, it is delusional to think that when risks become perceptible, everyone will be able to cut their exposures at the same time and in an orderly fashion. My hope is that the current momentum among supervisors around the world will help us to better measure and mitigate the long-term risks associated with climate change, and hence smooth the transition. In this regard, we, as supervisors, should collectively move forward in two priority areas. [slide 4] Our first priority should be the identification and disclosure of existing exposures in the financial sector, or “the snapshot of risks”.

There is also much uncertainty about the intensity of the recovery in the final months of the year, in view of the recent course of the pandemic in Europe. The short-term indicators available, such as the PMI for October, among others, point to a slowdown in the growth of activity in the euro area in the fourth quarter. Most worrying is that the widespread implementation of new measures to contain the health crisis could lead to a significant additional slowdown or even a contraction, at least in certain countries or sectors. Therefore, the outlook for the euro area economy continues to be highly uncertain and the risks are tilted to the downside. Specifically, the ECB’s latest projections, dating from end-September, envisage a baseline scenario where the prolongation over the coming quarters of the improvement seen since May would not prevent the area’s GDP from declining by 8%, followed by a recovery of 5% in 2021. Achieving these figures appears to be called into question, since one of the assumptions of this baseline scenario is that the epidemiological situation will not worsen in  3  the short term, something which developments since the projection cut-off date seem to be disproving. As regards the inflation outlook for the euro area, the ECB expects a very modest rise this year of only 0.3%, increasing to 1% in 2021 and 1.3% in 2022, far from the medium-term price stability target.