samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Arthur Yuen: Transforming risk management and compliance harnessing the power of regtech Speech by Mr Arthur Yuen, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Hong Kong FinTech Week 2020, Hong Kong, 2 November 2020. * * *  Opening 1. Ladies and Gentlemen, a very good morning or good afternoon to you, wherever you are in the world! Welcome to the Fifth Annual Hong Kong Fintech Week. 2. The focus of this session is how we can harness the power of technology to transform risk management and regulatory compliance. 3. COVID-19 has sparked many changes for all of us. The fact that I am speaking virtually to you today as part of a fully virtual Hong Kong FinTech Week is one of those changes. And those changes once again reminded us of how important it is for government, regulators, banks and other industries to be adaptive. More importantly, these are not changes to be feared or avoided. Rather, we should embrace them in order to move forward. 4. At the HKMA, we have always been passionate about promoting and implementing technology solutions to make our banking system smarter. This, we reckon, is the only way to ensure that our banking sector remains internationally competitive. Along this same line of thinking, we are launching a White Paper today that sets out a glide path for the wider adoption of Regtech in Hong Kong. This White Paper outlines a series of actions that we would take to accelerate Regtech adoption. 5.

The financial crisis was a searing experience that damaged household and business confidence in a profound way – with a more lasting effect than the typical economic downturn. The housing bust created both a large housing supply overhang and a large number of households that were underwater on their mortgages. Households needed to repair their balance sheets and bring down their debt service burdens to more manageable levels. Higher levels of unemployment further depressed demand. Credit availability contracted. The tightening of credit standards occurred quite broadly – in housing credit, consumer credit cards and business lending. Some of the credit supply restrictions were imposed by banks that needed to repair their balance sheets, deleveraging by building up capital and working down their bad assets. Fiscal outlays were not high enough to compensate for the contractionary impulse from these first three sources. The crisis led to a significant deterioration in the U.S. federal budget deficit and put pressure on state and local budgets. After the federal budget deficit reached around 10 percent of GDP at the peak, fiscal consolidation occurred at the federal level, as well as at state and local levels, restraining economic activity instead of supporting growth. Productivity growth has also been quite low. In the period before the crisis (2003 to 2008), U.S. nonfarm productivity growth averaged 2 percent per year. Since 2010, productivity has been closer to 1 percent. While some of this decline can be explained by lower capital spending, the decline is difficult to fully explain.
This is where money comes in and makes things easier for everyone; in that we agree what we will use as means of payment and store of value, Anna can give Pelle money for his work that represents the value of her harvest. The money is a representation of the work someone has done. 4 But for this to work, everyone must trust that it will be possible to buy what they want for the money, and that it must be easy and cheap to use money. This is where the central banks and other public authorities come in. The Riksbank’s role is to add efficiency and reliability for Swedish kronor and this is how we do it: • •  •  •  •  By ensuring that money retains its value. It is via monetary policy that the Riksbank holds inflation low and stable. By ensuring that one can rely on payments in Sweden. We need to know for certain when a payment has been finally executed, otherwise we would not be able to trade with one another. It is also possible that major risks could arise to the financial system if many participants had claims on one another. By supplying a payment system so that the banks manage their payments via the Riksbank we ensure that the payments are running smoothly. By ensuring that one can rely on the banking system where money is stored and created.

Már Guðmundsson: Iceland’s crisis and recovery and the crisis in the eurozone Address by Mr Már Guðmundsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, in an international panel of bank governors on the European financial crisis and the Israeli economy, the Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society, Masada, Israel, 28 June 2012. *  *  *  Almost 90% of Iceland’s financial sector collapsed in the first week of October 2008, after its three private cross-border banks failed. In the panic that gripped global financial markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, these banks, like so many internationally active banks around the world, were faced with a wholesale run on their foreign currency liabilities and were therefore heading towards a default on those liabilities in the absence of lender-of-lastresort assistance in terms of foreign currency. However, given the size of the balance sheets involved (10 times GDP overall, with over two-thirds in foreign currency), it was impossible for the Icelandic authorities to provide this assistance on their own. Had the government made a full-scale attempt to save the banks, it would have been at serious risk of defaulting itself. The Icelandic banks’ failures were large by any criteria: the largest of them places 4th on the world list of corporate failures, and the three Icelandic banks combined rank 2nd, after Lehman. It was thus an event of systemic proportion in parts of Europe.
To the extent, however, that a rise in inflation is associated with developments that are putting pressure on the exchange rate in the shape of a persistent loss of external reserves, such as a surge in consumer imports financed by credit creation, then a higher interest rate could have a cooling effect. In Malta’s open trading environment, one would expect prices to respond more effectively to market forces than seems to be the case. The relatively small number of importers of essential commodities and of providers of some services that have a significant weight in the retail price index is a disadvantage in this respect. There are governmental agencies whose responsibility it is to ensure that competition and price transparency prevail. Containing local costs, including government-induced costs, should also be a priority in this crucial ERM II phase. In its capacity as advisor to the government, the Bank takes every opportunity to express any concerns that it may have in this regard. 8. In addition to the short-term pressure of the Maastricht criteria, there is the longterm reality of the welfare gap. Are you frustrated with the pace of pension reform? A sense of disappointment best sums up my feelings. I am all for consultation and consensus building, but the time comes when decisions need to be taken if further damage is to be avoided. This applies equally to the social welfare and health systems as it does to pensions. Last year the first cohorts of the baby-boom generation reached retirement age.

Norman T L Chan: Removal of RMB conversion limit for Hong Kong residents Speech by Mr Norman T L Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong, 12 November 2014. *  *  *  I am glad to announce that the RMB conversion limit for Hong Kong residents of RMB20,000 per day will no longer be applicable with effect from 17 November 2014. Under the new arrangement, banks will square their positions arising from RMB conversions conducted with Hong Kong residents in the offshore market instead of the onshore market. As a result, the prevailing conversion and other relevant restrictions for onshore conversion will hence be no longer applicable. The HKMA has just issued a circular to banks setting out the detailed arrangements. The HKMA has had many rounds of discussions with the banking industry and Mainland authorities on relaxing the restrictions on RMB currency conversions by Hong Kong residents. We consider that the best option is for RMB conversions by Hong Kong residents to be done in the offshore market instead of the onshore market. With the size of the offshore RMB liquidity pool in Hong Kong exceeding RMB 1 trillion, and considering the scale and depth of the RMB foreign exchange market, we do not foresee any problem for banks to square their positions for Hong Kong residents’ RMB conversions in the offshore market.
Decisions were now taken by the Bank’s MPC and were accompanied both by published minutes of MPC meetings and a quarterly Inflation Report. This pushed the wordcount per decision up to around 20,000. Fast forward to today. Monetary policy decisions are still made by the MPC and communicated through Minutes and the Inflation Report. But there have been additions. A Monetary Policy Statement now accompanies every policy decision. And, after a lag of eight years, transcripts of the policy meetings themselves will in future also be published. By my rough estimates, that will push the word-count per monetary policy decision up to around 30,000 to 35,000. These are big steps forward from an openness perspective. The key question, from a Shannon perspective, is how far they have helped understanding of monetary policy by the general public. The evidence here is mixed. On the upside, around 60% of the general public believe the Bank has a good understanding of the economy. On the downside, despite the raft of transparency initiatives, only around a third believe the Bank operates with openness. And, perhaps most tellingly of all, only around a quarter believe the Bank explains its actions and decisions in terms they can understand. 63 What explains this mixed message? Perhaps, as with banks, some of the explanation lies in the nature of communications, rather than their quantity. Chart 4 puts Bank of England reports and speeches on the linguistic complexity map.

Finally, emerging/developing economies have been subject to wide swings in financing from abrupt withdrawal of funds in 2008 to significant inflows recently, and as a result they are starting to implement capital controls. The risk is that these may spread unless financial flows become less erratic and more long-term and stable. 7. Concern about commodity bubble and high-yielding products  Over the past several decades, the world financial system has produced a seemingly endless series of bubbles (e.g. the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble and the Yen carry trade). Each bubble had its apologists before it burst, who argued that it was rational and that “this time is different.” Historically, commodities (apart from oil) were in a downward trend for over 100 years until 2002. Since then the entire decline has been reversed and commentators are talking about a “Paradigm Shift.” Compared to historical trends, commodities are as over-priced as the US stock market during the “tech bubble” of 2000. The parabolic rise in commodity prices has serious consequences and it is open to question whether the world economy is strong enough to support their continued gains. It is particularly damaging to inflation and growth in emerging market economies which are relatively heavy users of commodities. With interest rates at current low levels, investors are looking for high-yield products; but high yield brings high risks as well.
The Bank has also licensed a  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  credit reference bureau to help create credit histories for financial market participants that may serve as alternative to collateral. In addition, it has now become easier to access banking services through lower bank account opening balance, improved payments systems through mobile banking, e-money and increased numbers of Automated Teller Machines and Point of Sale terminals. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bank of Zambia has also partnered with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to promote the use of the FAMOS Check Tool by financial service providers in order to enhance access to finance by women entrepreneurs. The tool is intended to enable financial service providers undertake a systematic assessment of the extent to which these institutions target women entrepreneurs, their needs and potentialities. The tool also assists financial service providers to develop appropriate strategies to extend their outreach to women entrepreneurs as well as develop products to meet the needs of women entrepreneurs. In this collaborative exercise, ILO has since facilitated capacity building within the Bank of Zambia and certified some members of staff to undertake the FAMOS training within the entire financial sector. Commercial Banks have been expected to utilize the tool and use the results to tailor services and products that reach out to women. However progress made in this area could be improved. There is an urgent need therefore to reinvigorate the FAMOS check tool.

Now that I am already way out on a limb, I should emphasize that my remarks reflect my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or anyone else in the Federal Reserve System. As a starting point, it’s useful to travel back in time to the 1980s and 1990s, when inflation targeting was introduced. The problem at the time was high and variable inflation that contributed to macroeconomic instability and unmoored inflation expectations, which in turn fueled high and variable inflation. To break this vicious cycle, numerous central banks instituted inflation targeting, or variants thereof, with a focus on bringing inflation down to a low level and fostering the establishment of stable, well-anchored inflation expectations. This strategy worked extraordinarily well in the decade preceding the global financial crisis, as central banks were able to achieve remarkably low and stable inflation, leading to a positive feedback loop between low inflation and well-anchored inflation expectations. Today, we face an altogether different set of problems stemming from a very low neutral interest rate—that is, the short-term real interest rate consistent with an economy operating at its potential alongside low and stable inflation. Ironically, the problem we need to solve these days is the risk of inflation that is persistently too low, rather than too high. Today’s low neutral interest rates reflect the culmination of trends extending back 25 years.
When collated responses are then presented raw, and weighted by confidence. 28 A particularly famous example of good and clear communication of a complicated message is Feynman Diagrams, which are pictorial representations of the behaviour of subatomic particles. 24  8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  8  2. Good practices need to become more widespread in the media  Good standards and practices are important given the vital role the media plays in any democracy and in mediating the views of experts – and they exist in many places. But the economics of the industry has created a dangerous trend where the unwillingness to pay for content means that financial pressures squeeze out higher quality reporting. Many news organisations have to rely on “native advertising” (whereby a product is promoted under the guise of a news story) to generate income. Perhaps as a result, trust in mainstream media has plummeted more than any other institution and is now distrusted in more than 80% of countries. 29  This has been exacerbated by the rise of fake news and the phenomenon of “false equivalence”  whereby, in the name of balanced reporting, news organizations give equal time to credible and less credible sources. How can producers of information and expertise balance the need for reliability with allowing different views to be heard? What is the balance between freedom of speech and the media’s duty to 30  inform? Few institutions value freedom of speech more than universities.

Fact checkers have also developed a code of conduct to enable users to assess the veracity of their work. 34  There have also been examples of new institutions being created to enhance trustworthiness in areas where trust has been eroded. In the wake of the series of misconduct scandals around misselling of financial products, LIBOR and foreign exchange rigging, two institutions were established. The first, the Banking Standards Board, is focused on improving conduct standards in banks. The second, the FICC Markets Standards Board, seeks to pre-empt future problems by establishing acceptable standards of practice in wholesale financial markets. These initiatives will take time to bear fruit, but are illustrative of trying to rebuild trustworthiness when it has lapsed. Schools and universities will have to do more to educate students to be more discerning consumers of information, and public awareness campaigns on media literacy may be warranted. 35  In a striking piece of  research based on testing of thousands of students across the United States, the Stanford History Education Group concluded that young people’s ability to reason about information on the internet could be summed up as “bleak.” They tested students on whether they could distinguish an ad from a news story or whether they noticed that data came from a political lobbying group. “At every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students’ lack of preparation.
These are attributes that we have been strengthening over time and that we must hold onto in the face of new challenges. At the same time, we must be aware that the specific scope of action of the Bank is the macroeconomy and, in particular, the control of inflation and the safeguarding of financial stability. The process of recalibration of monetary policy was triggered by the drop-in inflation measured by the CPI and the policy response boosts economic activity because it seeks to reduce gaps in activity to ensure the convergence of inflation. Estimating greater trend and potential growth was the result of an analysis of macroeconomic phenomena and it influenced the adjustment of the MPR but does not ensure all the microeconomic or institutional conditions to take advantage of all the leeway that it potentially generates. Monetary policy may provide an additional cushion against external shocks, but it cannot shield the economy completely. For this reason, it is important that, at the end of this presentation, as in other opportunities, we understand the focus of the Board’s commitment: to keep inflation low and stable, as the main contribution that the Bank makes to the well-being of Chileans. The stability that this brings to the country should facilitate the contribution of other players to the same end purpose. Thank you.

In the medium term, various elements suggest that investment will regain strength. For the time being, the lower basis for comparison that the adjustment will leave in its 2019 growth will help to raise the 2020 record, the year for which the baseline scenario estimates a 5.1% growth in GFCF. The capital-to-GDP ratio has remained low in recent years (under 22% in real terms), with productive investment—excluding mining and housing— that practically grew zero in the 2016-2018 period. Plus, that the strong immigration of recent years reduced the capital/labor ratio. Absorbing this greater workforce requires adjusting the capital stock, so that, absent a more significant change in the vision about productivity, and/or the various costs associated with the formalities of investment projects, it should resume its former dynamism. The domestic conditions to finance this greater investment are favorable: local interest rates have remained low (Figure 9), something that will be reinforced with the decision of the last Monetary Policy Meeting. In the same way, external financing conditions have remained favorable and, in fact, the interest rates of US Treasury bonds are also low. All this occurs in a context of no imbalances in the local financial system, no elements hindering the flow of financing, and a bounded fiscal deficit. All in all, the first-quarter evolution of investment puts a note of caution in case the slowdown proves more persistent, especially because of the higher uncertainty abroad. For now, this has reduced asset prices and, with it, the incentives to invest.
It was impossible for such an economic model to be stable and by now, as I already mentioned, the situation has thoroughly changed. GDP in leading industrial countries will decrease 3.8% this year with growth in the USA contracting by 2.8%. For the rest of the world this means the USA foreign trade deficit will reduce notably, which, in the IMF's estimate, will lead to shrinkage in the USA imports. BIS Review 89/2009  1  Therefore, global economic growth will not be able to lean on the US domestic demand and exports of goods and services to the States either this or the next year. The recession in the USA has hit hard exports-dependent East-Asian countries, where goods exports have declined by more than a third year-on-year. Therefore, smaller and more open Asian countries have suffered a very sharp downturn. For instance, Singapore is expected to undergo a 10% and Taiwan a 7.5% contraction. Larger Eastern-Asian countries, such as China, maintain their economic growth by launching foreign assets accumulated over the past ten years and reducing interest rates. National expenditure on infrastructure has been markedly boosted and it is also hoped cheap bank loans will help keep up consumption. The IMF forecasts Asian new industrial countries' economic growth will be – 5.6% in 2009 and 0.8% in 2010. In conclusion, the current crisis has thoroughly changed the past ten year's development scenario of the global economy.

According to the current outlooks, the economy should stabilise in the second half of this year and it may start growing again either at the end of 2009 or at the beginning of 2010. However, all forecasts continue to be insecure. If our main trading partners' growth recovered faster, it would also give impetus to Estonia's economic activity, whereas a protracted global economic downswing would put a drag on rekindling growth here. Recent days' messages from the world have been slightly more optimistic after several months of bad news. It is thought the large support packages have finally started to render results. This requires even more urgently that countries be ready to take stapes to ensure long-term growth potential. It has happened before in the world that economic crises have been defeated by creating assumptions for a new crisis. Thank you for your attention! BIS Review 89/2009  5