samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In particular, banks will have to learn to live with the considerable increase in regulatory demands. These will arise especially from the imminent entry into force of the liquidity and provisioning requirements included in the Basel III Accord, and from the foreseeable introduction of additional measures, such as those that will demand separation in some cases between the investment banking business (proprietary trading, market-making, etc.) and the traditional banking business, or that will require banks to have liabilities available that may be converted into equity in the event of resolution. At the same time, greater restrictions can be expected on the admittance of internal asset risk assessment models when they represent savings in regulatory capital. In turn, within the framework of the SSM, work can be expected to begin to try to harmonise the regulatory differences that persist (for example, in the calendars for application of the capital deductions established in Basel III) as well as supervisory practices (for example, relating to the approval of internal risk assessment models). Insofar as greater harmonisation can be expected to be conducive to stricter supervisory practices, in each area the new supervisory framework will generally tend to raise the bar for all European banks. Hence, in order to adapt to the new regulatory and supervisory environment, many banks will need to make further efforts to strengthen their own funds.

The figures for other countries are:  In Canada: 28% of the population answer the three questions correctly. The percentage is 23% for youths aged 18-34. Gap 18-34/total: 82%  In The Netherlands: 34% of the population answer the three questions correctly. The percentage is 26% for youths aged 1834. Gap 18-34/total: 76%.  In the United Kingdom: 14% of the population answer the three questions correctly. The percentage is 11% for youths aged 18-34. Gap 18-34/total: 78%. 4  6  In terms of the specific questions, those showing the biggest differences are that on inflation (compared with 58% of correct answers in the total population, 49.5% of individuals aged 18-34 reply correctly) and that on risk diversification (compared with 49% of correct answers in the total population, 43% of individuals aged 18-34 reply correctly). 7 Specifically, individuals are defined as delegating when, in the Survey, they have answered “No” to the following question: "We wish to know whether you are familiar with your household’s finances. We refer not only to whether you are familiar with the household’s properties, financial products and debts, but also the reasons for specific spending and investment decisions.”  5/8  population, 6% of individuals state they are not familiar with their household’s finances, while this figure triples for youths aged 18-35. These results might be influenced by the high percentage of Spanish youths that live with their parents compared with other developed countries.
7 That is associated with a commonly expressed concern that negative rates reduce banks’ profitability. 6  Measured at market exchange rates. 7  In some cases household borrowing rates have actually risen. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches  To be clear, monetary policy is conducted to achieve price stability not for the benefit of bank shareholders. Nonetheless, when negative rates are implemented in ways that insulate retail customers, shutting off the cash flow and other channels that mainly affect domestic demand, while allowing wholesale rates to adjust, their main effect is through the exchange rate channel. From an individual country’s perspective this might be an attractive route to boost activity. But for the world as a whole, this export of excess saving and transfer of demand weakness elsewhere is ultimately a zero sum game. Moreover, to the extent it pushes greater savings onto the global markets, global short-term equilibrium rates would fall further, pulling the global economy closer to a liquidity trap. At the global zero bound, there is no free lunch. 8 For monetary easing to work at a global level it cannot rely on simply moving scarce demand from one country to another. Instead policy needs to increase primarily domestic demand, with the exchange-rate channel more a side effect that accompanies any monetary policy action.

In any case, there are several key questions that need answers to properly identify NPOs and their activities in a country. These questions include: i)  What is an NPOs sector ? ii)  How many NPOs are in operation? iii)  What types are they (religious, cultural, educational, sports). iv)  What activities do they perform? v)  Are there registration requirements and record keeping requirements for NPOs? vi)  Are there reporting requirements? vii)  Are there mechanisms to verify funds are spent as advertised and planned? So it is fair to say that there are major challenges and practical issues that need careful consideration when the issue of money laundering and terrorist financing is discussed from the perspective of NPOs. The global concern Let me now briefly highlight some of the concerns that have emerged globally in the area of money laundering and terrorist financing. The goal of a large number of criminal acts is to generate a profit for the individual or group that carry out these acts. Money laundering is the processing of these criminal proceeds to disguise their illegal origin. This process is of critical importance, as it enables the criminal to enjoy these profits without jeopardizing their source. Illegal arms sales, smuggling and the activities of organized crime, including, for example, drug trafficking, human trafficking and prostitution rings, can generate huge amounts of cash. Embezzlement, bribery and computer fraud schemes can also produce large profits and create the incentive to “legitimize” the ill-gotten gains through money laundering.
In France an important contribution comes from the “Observatory for payment cards security”, which I have the pleasure to chair. Its recommendations have facilitated the recognition by stakeholders, who are all represented in the Observatory, of the importance of strong customer authentication for Internet payments and facilitated its wide adoption. This has significantly contributed to limit the impact on fraud rates, at least for national payments, and it has helped foster the dramatic expansion of e-commerce that we currently see. But beyond the development of card payments via the Internet, other innovations such as mobile and contactless payments or online banking services also raise important issues. These issues notably include the protection of sensitive payment data. To address them, the Banque de France has been working with the banking community, which translated into an agreement in 2011 to promote the protection of bank account identifiers and card numbers. This issue of protection of sensitive data appears all the more important to address that we  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  witness the entry of newcomers in the payment chain like third party payment services providers, who may contribute positively to foster innovation and potentially competition in the retail payments market but whose modus operandi should not lead to lower the current security level of online banking services. What lessons can we draw from that experience to promote best practices in the field of security for retail payments on a larger scale?

This has contributed to fuel a longstanding experience in addressing safety and efficiency issues and trade-offs from a public policy perspective that I would like to refer to, in order to draw a few lessons that you might be willing to consider in the course of the debates you will have today. Over the past decade, the financial sector has changed considerably with the emergence of the Internet and the use of new information technologies. This is particularly true for payment means. The introduction of chip and PIN in France in the early nineties, and then all across Europe in the past few years is a great example of how innovation can bring about efficiency but also safety benefits to the payments chain. Such introduction has indeed contributed in making card payments highly secure at the point of sale. However, innovations have also brought about new challenges in terms of risks to address. This is notably the case with the development of distant payments allowed by the Internet. As underlined in the report on card fraud published by the ECB in February 2014, fraud on “card not present” transactions, mainly via the internet, increased by nearly 21% in 2012 in the SEPA area, and accounted for 60% of all fraud losses on cards issued inside the SEPA. Fortunately, the vulnerabilities at the root of those frauds are well identified and important efforts are underway both by public authorities and the private sector to address them.
Examples of such intermediate variables could be current price tendencies, the money supply or resource utilisation. I intend to discuss such possibilities and then conclude by harking back to the Riksbank’s current monetary policy strategy. Alternatives to basing monetary policy on forecasts Actual price movements One alternative to the present rule of thumb could be to set the interest rate in the light of the prevailing rate of inflation. The Riksbank would then adjust the instrumental rate every time Statistics Sweden publishes a CPI outcome that is above or below the 2 per cent target. The primary argument against such an arrangement is perhaps that, compared with the present rule of thumb, it would lead to larger fluctuations in real economic activity. This is because the repo rate and inflation are not directly linked. The Riksbank’s possibility of influencing price movements is more indirect and works, in simple terms, via market interest rates, credit flows and asset prices before impinging on demand in the real economy and such variables as employment, profits, investment, consumption and net exports. Demand’s impact on prices depends in turn on potential output and resource utilisation. We still do not know exactly how this complex transmission mechanism functions, how quickly it works or how it varies both over time and in its effects on the economy. Concerning the time lag, the view adopted by most central banks is that most of the effect materialises after an interval of one to two years.

However, as pointed out in the same report, Turkey is at the bottom of the list in terms of costs for starting businesses (issuing licenses and permits after starting the business), regulations for firms exiting the industry, licensing procedures, ease of recruiting and employing workers. 2  BIS Review 37/2008  We can list transport vehicles, white goods and consumer-oriented electronic products such as radio and television as the sectors where Turkey’s competitive power is relatively high at present. The increased market share of China and India in these sectors poses a potential risk for the Turkish economy. In response to these risks, some structural reforms oriented towards domestic markets have been made, particularly during the process of Turkey’s accession to the EU. These regulations aim to ensure the integration of the Turkish economy with the EU on a sectoral basis and to strengthen the competitive power of our firms. It is not merely the relatively low labor costs that allow our firms to assume a position as important actors in international markets. Providing a stable macroeconomic structure for our economy is a must, but it is not enough. The qualified manpower of our country should be increased, our firms should be institutionally open to new developments and our industry should also adopt a structure that is not only demanding but also producing technology. To this end, it is of great importance to implement well-designed microeconomic reforms decisively. Competition policy is certainly one of the cornerstones of these reforms.
10  For example, foreign currency debt securities were at the heart of the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s in which bond investors played a significant role in volatile capital flows and ultimately in sovereign crises. 11 Recent Bank research shows that during the 2013 ‘taper tantrum’ asset managers sold bonds as prices fell, perhaps exacerbating the episode. See Czech and Roberts-Sklar (2017). 12 Whilst price-based measures of liquidity in fixed-income markets, such as quoted bid-ask spreads, are in line with historical standards, volume-based measure have deteriorated. In US and UK government bond markets, turnover ratios have declined materially since pre-crisis. In corporate bond markets, average large trade sizes have fallen. US corporate bond dealer inventories are over six times less than before the pre-crisis period and Sterling and US corporate bond inventories have been steadily declining since 2011. 13 Bank of England Financial Stability Report, Box 2, December 2015 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  6  It is also less clear now that other investors like pension funds and insurance companies would come in to stabilise a falling market in the way that they may have done in the past. A Bank of England-led study in 2014 found evidence that in some instances, insurance companies and pension funds might indeed act pro rather than counter-cyclically in a severe episode of stress, selling into a falling market.

The task is to make the best forecast we can of how the economy and inflation pressures will evolve and to adjust policy to ensure the outcome is consistent with monetary stability. Financial stability by contrast is more about the tail of the probability distribution than the central probability – about what could happen rather than what is likely to happen. Our task is to ensure the financial system avoids very bad outcomes. Or, if they cannot be avoided, that the system can weather them without breaking down and without acting as an amplifier of stress. Though infrequent and unlikely, the events we lived through 10 years ago demonstrated that such breakdowns not only can happen but are also extremely costly when they do happen. So although it may appear gloomy, we are always looking for the downside risk, always asking what risks could the financial system generate, what risks could it withstand, what risks could it amplify? And, by extension, whether it is worth insuring against those risks crystallising. The past of course gives us some guide. We know many of the things that have caused financial crises in the past that we need to prevent causing problems in the future. But our job is not just about preventing the last war; it is also about anticipating and assessing new risks as the financial system grows and evolves. And, where justified, taking action to address them.
I hope from this you can get the sense of how important this potential innovation in digital money is, and why we must – both domestically and working with international partners – ensure that we understand and respond to the public interest issues that arise here, so that we can do our job of protecting stability, but also so that innovation can happen in a world where the public interest is well defined and protected. I am going to end – since time is up – by merely listing the other elements of public interest that I could, and probably should have covered, with respect to the innovation of digital currency, but which will have to wait for another day. I could have talked about monetary policy and controlling interest rates in a world of digital money. I could have talked about the public interest in competition in the financial system, about financial inclusion, and about data protection and privacy. I could have talked about the potential for digital money to speed up and reduce the transactions cost of international payments and transfers. And, finally, we cannot ignore the risks that digital money is attractive for money launderers and cyber criminals. All I can say today, I hope this gives the sense of the scale of this area of innovation and how important the subject is. Thank you I am grateful to Jas Ellis, Andrew Hauser, Karen Jude and Sam Woods for their help with preparing these remarks. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches

Ásgeir Jónsson: Address – 59th Annual Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland Address by Mr Ásgeir Jónsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland, Reykjavík, 25 March 2020. * * * On 19 October 1918, Iceland finally reached a sovereignty agreement with the Danish authorities. But that day, 19 October, was momentous for another reason as well. It was the day the second wave of the Spanish flu arrived in Iceland with the passenger ship Botnia. No hygienic measures or mitigating actions were taken at first. In fact, the Surgeon General considered it pointless. The disease spread like wildfire and peaked a mere three weeks after it had been borne to Iceland. However, the authorities prevented the spread of the Spanish flu to North and East Iceland by closing off transportation. At that time, half of the nation lived in the countryside, and it was therefore easier to maintain distances between people than it is today. Iceland recorded its first death from the Spanish flu on 2 November 1918. An estimated 63% of Reykjavík residents were infected, and around 500 Icelanders died, making for a mortality rate of 2.6%. The Spanish flu hit young people the hardest. It is clear that, against this backdrop, the celebration of Iceland’s sovereignty, when the Danish-Icelandic Act of Union entered into effect on 1 December 1918, was a bittersweet affair. But misfortune had more in store for Iceland.
In absolute value, the total foreign assets were raised by Lek 17.2 billion. Contribution to foreign assets growth was also given by foreign reserve investment in foreign markets. However, the appreciation of domestic currency versus two main currencies, Euro and US dollar, has negatively impacted on existing foreign assets value by about Lek 8.5 billion, expressed in the reduction of Revaluation Reserve, on which the Ministry of Finance has projected the issuing of securities, in compliance with the Law “On the Bank of Albania” and the Law “On State Budget for 2005”. Also, the Bank of Albania, in implementation of its monetary policy, has used the instrument of outright Treasury bills sales. This has brought about the reduction of portfolio of domestic assets of the Bank of Albania by 10.5 percent or Lek 8.0 billion. On the other hand, the easing policy has impacted on the decrease of Treasury bills yield through interest rate cut. The combination of both factors has impacted on the level of income from investment in securities portfolio of Albanian Government for Lek 2.3 billion or 30 percent less in comparison to the plan. This reduction constitutes 100 percent of the dropping of total income from operations. Under the conditions of almost the same level of operative expenses, compared to the previous year, the net profit of the Bank of Albania over 2004 resulted to Lek 5.5 billion or Lek 2.4 billion less than in 2003. ******* Honored deputies!

These improvements were dictated by the need to adjust to and implement the European directives in this are, and the Basel principles for an effective supervision. Other activities of the Bank of Albania During 2004 the legal status of the Bank of Albania remained unchanged. Meanwhile, the revising of the Law “On Banking System in the Republic of Albania” started with the purpose to further perfect the legal framework of commercial banks’ activity in accordance with the aspirations of our country for membership in the European Union. BIS Review 38/2005  7  Also, during the last autumn the Bank of Albania regenerated most of its Supervisory Council (7 members) and new administrators of the institution were elected. This process did not impact on normal flowing of the Bank’s activity, indicating the consolidation of this institution. During 2004 the inter-institutional cooperation was another feature characterizing the Bank of Albania performance. In this aspect, we have been open and ready to design and implement the country’s development programs, to advise the Albanian executive on various economic issues and we have participated actively in all tables of negotiations with the international factor. In view of meeting the objectives and obligations deriving from the agreements between Albanian authorities and international institutions, during 2004 the Bank of Albania closely cooperated with the latter ones. In the framework of consultations on assessing the fulfilment of obligations deriving from the agreement between Albanian authorities and the IMF, Albania was visited by three monitoring missions of the IMF.
Jean-Pierre Danthine: Swiss banks from a financial stability perspective Introductory remarks by Mr Jean-Pierre Danthine, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the media news conference of the Swiss National Bank, Berne, 20 June 2013. *  *  *  As my colleague Thomas Jordan has explained, economic and financial conditions for the Swiss banking sector continue to be challenging. Against this background, I would like to examine the situation at Swiss banks from a financial stability perspective, looking first at the big banks and then moving on to a discussion of domestically focused banks. Big banks: strengthening resilience Over the past year, the Swiss big banks have substantially improved their capital situation. Risk-weighted capital ratios have been raised markedly, and both banks are now very well placed in an international peer comparison. Moreover, with its capital-building, Credit Suisse has also raised its leverage ratio considerably. Measured in terms of loss-absorbing capital – defined as Common Equity Tier 1 capital plus high-trigger contingent capital instruments – leverage ratios at the big banks are now at roughly the same level. However, given the prevailing risks in the environment and the losses incurred in the recent crisis, the SNB still considers current leverage ratios at the Swiss big banks to be low. In addition, a number of comparative studies imply that, in terms of leverage ratios, UBS and Credit Suisse are currently below the international average.

Despite the measures taken, however, imbalances continued to build up in 2012. Against this background, the Federal Council decided in February 2013 to activate the countercyclical capital buffer, at the proposal of the SNB. In the light of this risk situation, the fact that the capitalisation of domestically focused banks is significantly above the regulatory minimum requirements is a welcome development. Indeed, compared to the previous year, these banks have even improved their regulatory capitalisation slightly. Moreover, most domestically focused banks already meet FINMA’s capital buffer requirements, which go beyond Basel III. However, figures on regulatory capital may overestimate the true resilience of these banks. For one thing, the risks in the real estate market in particular are not or only partly taken into account in the regulatory capital requirements. For another, neither interest rate risk nor the low diversification of these banks – whose activities are centred on the domestic mortgage market – are fully reflected in the capital requirements. These aspects are currently of particular importance for three reasons. First, as already mentioned, mortgage and real estate markets have seen a further build-up of risks since June 2012. Second, there has been further significant growth in mortgage lending at domestically focused banks. Although growth momentum has declined year-on-year, the volume of mortgage claims at these banks has increased by around 5%. Third, banks’ risk appetite in lending has remained persistently high.