samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Ardian Fullani: Recent economic and monetary developments in Albania Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the press conference on the Monetary Policy Decision of the Bank of Albania Supervisory Council, Tirana, 25 January 2012. *  *  *  Today, on 25 January 2012, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania reviewed and approved the quarterly Monetary Policy Report. Based on the analysis of Albania’s latest economic and monetary developments and following discussions on their performance outlook, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania decided to cut the key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points. Following this decision, the rate for One Week Repurchase Agreement fell to 4.50%. The key rate is reduced under the conditions of contained inflationary pressures over the monetary policy horizon as well as expectations for a more prudent fiscal policy in the period ahead. The Supervisory Council deemed that this decision provides the appropriate monetary conditions to meet the inflation target over the medium run. Moreover, this movement increases the monetary stimulus and encourages the economic activity in Albania. (Let me now proceed with an overview of economic developments and main issues discussed at today’s meeting.) *** The Albanian economy faced challenges in 2011 as regards economic growth and maintaining of macroeconomic balances. Additional attention to public finance stability in euro-area countries is reflected in added risk premiums in international financial markets and reduced willingness to invest in emerging economies.

Public spending and budget deficit growth rates moderated after the first quarter, settled at low levels in the second and third quarters, and recorded obvious acceleration in the last quarter of the year. At the end of November, budget deficit was ALL 38 billion, reflecting 5.4% public spending increase and 0.7% budget revenues increase during this period. Acceleration of annualised budget expenditures in the last two months of the year owes primarily to higher capital expenditures during this period. Added prudence to fiscal stability, which characterises the 2012 budget, is expected to be reflected in lower contribution by the public sector to economic growth for 2012. Nonetheless, the Bank of Albania deems that this is an appropriate step to maintain macroeconomic stability and reduce risk premiums in the economy. Budget deficit narrowing in 2012 and its funding with domestic resources would generate more room for expansion of lending to the private sector in this period. Albanian economy continued to benefit from foreign demand in 2011, though at more moderate levels than in 2010. Annual growth of Albanian exports in value for the first eleven months of the year was 19.9%, implying slower rates compared with the corresponding period of a year earlier. On the other hand, imports accelerated their annual growth to 12.2%. Trade deficit widened by 8.1%, year on year, largely illustrating negative effects of price rise in global markets. A more detailed analysis of the trade deficit reveals that about 50% of its increase is created by the balance of electric energy exchange.
The national plan for the reduction of non-performing loans established a regulatory criterion, as an important task for/to the Bank of Albania. Starting from 2018, lending activity should take into account only tax declarations. This is one of the key elements for addressing informality, also for the significant share of the banking activity in the domestic economy. The Bank of Albania has previously dealt with this phenomenon from a regulatory point of view, but only with large 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  borrowers. The coordination of efforts with government bodies and appropriate actions taken in this regard have created the necessary space for taking this regulatory measure further to include a broader base of borrowers. The Bank of Albania is confident that this measure will bring long-term benefits for all parties involved in the process. - For the banking industry: crediting based on tax declarations facilitates significantly the lending process by putting banks on a common denominator in reading financial data. This eases the lending activity, providing banks with more clarity in the process of financial analysis and selection of borrowers, as well as exchanging information for common borrowers. - For Albanian enterprises and households: this process promotes transparency, which will be translated into reduction of credit risk and, most importantly, lowering of financing cost. Also, by providing a level playing field, this process fosters competition and efficiency, which, ultimately, contributes to the overall economic development of the country.

- For the economy: this process increases the country’s economic and financial stability and creates premises for a simpler tax system and a fairer distribution of the tax burden. Thank You! 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
In the best case, this provides a more balanced development, both with regard to the growth in credit and the banks’ resilience to shocks. This is a slightly more general approach than, for instance, the system of dynamic provisioning they have in Spain.8 The beauty of it is that by using aggregate measures of growth in lending we also capture other things that would otherwise remain off the banks' balance sheets. Note that we can make a connection between the Taylor rule for the policy rate and a corresponding rule for capital adequacy. Let me refer back to an equation I showed earlier, namely the banks' lending rate expressed as a function of the central bank's policy rate and a risk premium. 8  http://www.bde.es/provesta/proestae.htm. BIS Review 41/2009  17  Image 11  i  lending t  = it + m(ct ,...)  The premium is partly due to the bank’s demand for compensation for the need for capital cover for lending. If the capital adequacy requirement is controlled with the aid of our special rule, then not only bank-specific risks but also systemic risk factors will be priced in the lending rate. The banks’ lending rate thus depends on both the policy rate and a premium that in turn depends on the capital adequacy rule. In addition, both the Taylor rule for the policy rate and the capital adequacy rule depend on the output gap. This means that one can in principle link together these equations into a system.

In early March, the Bank of  8  BIS Review 41/2009  England cut its policy rate to 0.5 per cent and is thus also close to zero. Many other central banks, including the Riksbank, have also reduced their policy rate to all-time low levels. When the central banks' traditional tools for influencing demand in the economy can no longer be used – when no further cuts in the policy rate are possible – then other options have to be found. In both the USA and the UK, as in some other countries, the central banks have begun to conduct monetary policy using unusual, and in some case untested, methods. It may be worth pointing out, however, that there may be good reasons for implementing a lot of what the central banks have done irrespective of whether the policy rate is close to zero or not. This relates to various measures that aim to improve the functioning of the financial markets and ease the supply of credit. One way of trying to illustrate the course of events is to study the central banks' balance sheets. The exact form of these balance sheets varies from country to country, but they have a number of common features. For the sake of simplicity, and without claiming to present an exact picture of reality, allow me to assume a stylised balance sheet. On the asset side there are foreign and domestic assets and the lending to the banks.
This should reduce downward pressure on money market rates. Meanwhile, the availability of risk-free assets to a broader pool of counterparties could help to satisfy demand when the appetite for safe assets by those counterparties increases, but only indirectly. The Fed’s counterparty may hold a risk-free asset on its balance sheet – a reverse repo with the Fed collateralized by risk-free securities. However, the securities sold to the counterparty are in the tri-party system, making them unavailable for the counterparty to satisfy margin requirements. That said, to the extent that the counterparty switches its investments from other high-quality  14  A separate, overnight reverse repo facility has long existed as an investment vehicle for foreign central banks and international accounts that hold dollars in their accounts at the New York Fed. Investments in this program are pooled and are arranged in mutually agreed-upon amounts. Reverse repos with foreign official and international accounts are reported as a separate line item in the Board of Governors’ weekly H.4.1 statistical release on factors affecting reserve balances. 15  In practice, the size of the operation would be limited by the lesser of the level of excess reserves or the amount of securities held in the SOMA portfolio. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  assets to reverse repos with the Federal Reserve, the distribution of safe assets within the system could become more efficient. This type of facility represents an efficient tool from an operational and market-functioning standpoint as well.

I particularly express my gratitude to the Bank’s staff, the banks’ managers and shareholders who were the first to experience the effects of our decisions, to the media which facilitated the necessary two-way interaction with the public, to the government authorities with whom we necessarily cooperate, to the international financial organizations, particularly the IMF, the World Bank and the EU Delegation, with whom we have exceptionally useful cooperation, to the business community, which, with some exceptions, showed high positive sensibility and understanding for the National Bank policy, to the diplomatic representatives in the country who, in their distinctive way, often expressed their support and understanding for the work of the National Bank. I also thank all the critics of the decisions we have made all these seven years who, regardless of their opinions, made us more cautious in the decision making process and helped expand the knowledge of the market participants, including the households, on the National Bank activities and on the importance of its decisions for the everyday life. I know well that these special occasions are not suitable for longer speeches on our accomplishments. Actually, we were doing that regularly through the monthly reports, quarterly and annual reports, regular press releases of the sessions, through press conferences and the NBRM website which is becoming richer and better from day to day.
27.04.2021  Financial stability and macroprudential policy: objectives, tools and challenges* Universidad de Zaragoza Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  *English translation of the original speech in Spanish  Distinguished Rector of the University of Zaragoza, Distinguished Dean of the Faculty of Business Economics, academic and other authorities, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning. It is an honour and a pleasure to be able to participate in this event organised by the University of Zaragoza. I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to Vicente Salas, Chair of Business Economics at this University and the promoter of this meeting, who was linked for many years to the Banco de España in various capacities, as an economic adviser and as a member of our Executive Commission and our Governing Council. Over these years of intense collaboration, he played a pioneering role in theoretical and empirical works on the subject to which I wish to devote my address today: financial stability and macroprudential policy. In these papers he did not confine himself solely to studying various aspects relating to the financial system, but also devoted much of his research to analysing the interaction between the financial sector and the real economy, especially as far as firms are concerned. As I shall attempt to convey in my address, this interrelation is one of the key distinguishing characteristics that warrant and condition macroprudential policies. Financial stability is of fundamental significance for society’s well-being.

Galán J. E. (2020). “The benefits are at the tail: uncovering the impact of macroprudential policy on growth-at-risk”, Journal of Financial Stability, forthcoming. 20  Galán, J. E., and M. Lamas (2019). Beyond the LTV Ratio: New Macroprudential Lessons from Spain, Working Paper no. 1931, Banco de España. Galán, J., and J. Mencía (2021). “Model-based indicators for the identification of cyclical systemic risk”, Empirical Economics, forthcoming. Jiménez, G., S. Ongena, J. L. Peydró and J. Saurina (2017). “Macroprudential Policy, Countercyclical Bank Capital Buffers, and Credit Supply: Evidence from the Spanish Dynamic Provisioning Experiments”, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 125, no. 6. Jordà, O., B. Richter, M. Schularick and A. M. Taylor (2021). “Bank Capital Redux: Solvency, Liquidity, and Crisis”, The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 260-286. Martínez Miera, D., and R. Vegas (2021). “Impact of the dividend distribution restriction on the flow of credit to non-financial corporations in Spain”, Analytical Articles, Economic Bulletin, 1/2021, Banco de España. Mencía, J., and J. Saurina (2016). Macroprudential policy: objectives, instruments and indicators, Occasional Paper no. 1601, Banco de España. Rey, H. (2015). Dilemma not Trilemma: The Global Financial Cycle and Monetary Policy Independence, NBER Working Paper no. 21162, revised in February 2018. Tinbergen, J. (1956). Economic Policy, Principles and design, Books (Jan Tinbergen). NorthHolland. Tzur-Ilan, N. (2017). The Effect of Credit Constraints on Housing Choices: The Case of LTV limit, Bank of Israel Working Paper, 2017/3. 21
Risk management aims precisely at identifying potential contingencies, appraising them and adopting adequate preventive measures to avoid their materialization as much as possible, as well as having in place timely response plans to correct or mitigate the impact of such contingencies as they occur. Our experience at the Central Bank of Chile At the Central Bank of Chile, we are in constant search for improvements in integral risk management, understanding that it adds value to business processes by helping to prevent, among other things, interruptions in operations and damage to reputation. For risk management, we have a corporate governance structure headed by the Board, Senior Management, a committee of independent experts (the Audit and Compliance Committee) and the Risk Committee, which promotes the framework for the management of risks that may affect the Bank's ability to achieve its mission, its vision and its strategic objectives. While risk-oriented functions had been in place for quite some time, in 2019 the Bank created a unit to cover strategic, financial and non-financial risks (Corporate Risk). Issues that have been addressed since then include comprehensive and consolidated  1/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  risk assessment, having an appetite and tolerance statement, and incorporating the Corporate Risk unit, in an advisory role, into the process of analyzing strategic portfolio decisions in the decision-making process in the policy area. We have recently made public the Strategic Plan that will guide our institution in the fiveyear period 2023-2027.

This means buying assets or accepting collateral with higher levels of risk than those normally found on their balance sheets. Traditionally, central banks have preferred highly liquid and short-term investments, choices that have been clearly visible in the way international reserves are usually invested. Accordingly, from the standpoint of balance sheet risk management, central banks today face great challenges. This has created the need to develop tools and strategies that allow them to manage larger balance sheets and, therefore, higher absolute risks; all this in a context of less liquid financial markets and higher levels of volatility and credit risk. This fourth meeting has been organized bearing in mind these circumstances, and with the purpose in mind of giving continuity to the fruitful experiences of the previous ones. This meeting will open with a general framework of central banks' financial management, and will then address key risk-management considerations when designing and managing a strategic asset allocation model. The focus will be on (i) how central banks define their objectives, constraints and risk tolerance criteria when managing a strategic asset allocation framework, (ii) how portfolio optimization methods  2/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  can incorporate risk management considerations, and (iii) what are the guiding rules and organizational aspects of such strategic asset allocation within the risk management framework.
Will the correction of asset prices and the losses on credit be amplified by the financial system and cause the economic and social loss we saw 10 years ago? Or, losses notwithstanding, will the system absorb them without material dislocation to the economy? I can make the prediction that the next ‘crisis’ will have somewhere at its centre the overextension of credit and asset price adjustment because it is not a particularly bold one. Since its invention in the temple organisation of bronze age Mesopotamia, interest bearing debt – or credit if you want to see it from the other side of the coin – has had the property of being able to grow beyond the ability, or sometimes the willingness, of the economy to repay it. Debt contracts are essentially claims on the future and the future, when it arrives, does not always honour them. The origin of debt and credit are fascinating but unclear. It may have been an evolution of the reciprocal gift giving social obligations of early tribal societies. The etymological evidence suggests rather an evolution from the system of fines and compensation for injuries prevalent in such societies.1 It has also been suggested that the foundation of debt is the belief that man is born with debt to the heavens and creation and debt between members of society is an extension of this idea.

Empathy is deeply rooted in the fundamental values of Shariah, such as Ihsan, fairness and mutuality. At its core, Islamic finance seeks to prevent harm and promote the attainment of benefits to improve lives and livelihood. This includes alleviating hardships experienced by customers through funding, investment and protection solutions as well as making improvements in how customers experience finance. In this highly digitalised era, stakeholders are becoming better at discerning the contribution of financial sector to the economy and society. 'Empathy' will ensure that financial institutions are closely attuned to the non-homogenous needs of different segments of society and the economy, and understand how to service them effectively. Particularly when working with the vulnerable segments, financial institutions must consider how consumers can be empowered to make better decisions that improves their financial well-being and protect themselves against risks. As an example, the blended finance programme introduced by the Bank, iTEKAD, integrates mentoring and upskilling within the programme to help participants build knowledge and experience in managing finance. This helps improve sustainability of the participants' business as well as the programme itself. Conclusion In conclusion, I would like to share this quote from Erica Dhawan, "I thought I had to do it all, but in fact, I only had to do what truly mattered and made a difference". I trust that the deliberations from this programme will reinforce what is already crystal clear – that  2/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  is for financial sector to embrace sustainability and value-based finance.
If history serves as a guide to the evolution of EME balance sheets, EMEs’ external liabilities could double as a share of GDP by 2030: market-based finance could then account for half of external liabilities, up from onethird today. And if investment funds keep growing as they have over the past few years they could represent 40% of market-based finance flows to EMEs in a decade’s time. 22  22  There is a systematic cross-country relationship between the size and composition of external balance sheets with levels of incomes per capita. This has been combined with current forecasts (and for investment funds recent trends) to generate scenarios for the size and composition of EM balance sheets in 2030. In early stages of development a country’s cross-border finance tends to reflect trade finance provided by banks. As global value chains develop FDI becomes more important. Finally, market-based finance increases as financial 16  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  16  These flows will benefit EMEs in good times, but if domestic institutional frameworks do not evolve in parallel, they could also be major sources of instability. By 2030, the sensitivity of Capital Flows-at-Risk to push factors could triple (fourth bar, Chart 15).

Lawrence Williams: Leveraging central banks’ IT investments for strategic advantage Opening remarks by Mr Lawrence Williams, Governor of the Bank of Guyana, at the conference of regional central banks’ information systems specialists, Bank of Guyana, Georgetown, 4 June 2012. *  *  *  Chairman Deputy Governor Banking Manager Deputy Programme Manager, Information and Communication Technology, CARICOM Secretariat Conference Delegates Directors and other Staff members of the Bank of Guyana Invitees I wish to join with the Chairman in welcoming you to this opening session of the Conference of Regional Central Banks’ Information Systems Specialists. A warm welcome is extended to those of you visiting Guyana and more so to those of you visiting for the first time. A special welcome is also extended to Ms. Jennifer Britton who has taken time off her demanding schedule to present the Conference Keynote Address. The Bank of Guyana deems it a privilege to be hosting the Conference of Regional Central Banks’ Information Systems Specialists for the second time in the history of the Group. We are grateful for the fact that nine central banks accepted our invitation to participate in this conference. I thank you for graciously accepting our invitation. It is my fervent hope that the activities over the next five days will provide a good opportunity to engage in the sharing of ideas and experiences, as well as to gain new insights that would be beneficial to the wellbeing of your respective information technology functions in particular and, by extension, the institutions you represent.