samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The RTGS service settles an average of £ electronic payments each working day and we are in the process of renewing it to adapt to the changes in payments technology to make sure we have a system that is fit for the future. Our vision for the renewed service Blueprint was published in 20178 and is based on five key benefits: increased resilience, wider interoperability, greater access, strengthened end-to-end risk management and improved user functionality. While resilience is at the heart of the changes we also want to promote innovation within the payments landscape. As part of this we have work underway that will tackle a number of the existing frictions in cross-border payments, in particular those identified in Focus Areas C and D. We have, for example, undertaken research into atomic settlement mechanisms to develop the capability to facilitate conditional settlement of transactions to remove settlement risk. Once introduced these could be extended to include Payment-Versus-Payment settlement for FX transactions. The Bank has already made progress in widening access to its RTGS service to include non-bank payment service providers (NBPSPs) and as a result of a policy change in 2017 there are now half a dozen NBPSPs that hold settlement accounts in RTGS, with more set to join. The renewed service will support even greater access through a streamlined testing and on-boarding process and will be designed with the flexibility to enable new payment infrastructures, such as those using Distributed Ledger Technology to interface with the service.

This phenomenon has gained some interest in international media over the last couple of years. Let me give you some figures: The value of cash in circulation in relation to GDP has decreased steadily from approximately 10 per cent in 1950 to around 1.5 per cent today. Over the past decade even the nominal amount of cash in circulation has decreased, which is quite unique. The decrease has been substantial, between the peak in 2007 to 2016 the number of outstanding notes and coins decreased by more than a third. Most of this * I would like to thank Erik Lenntorp for his help in writing this text  1 [4]  decline has taken place in the last two to three years, driven partly by changing consumer habits, partly by our ongoing changeover of banknotes and coins. Value of banknotes and coins in circulation SEK billons (annual average)  Cash in Circulation/GDP  120  12,0%  100  10,0%  80  8,0%  60  6,0%  40  4,0%  20  2,0%  0  0,0% 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Nominal value (SEK bn, left scale) Value in relation to GDP (per cent, right scale)  Note: Banks’ holdings are excluded. Sources: Statistics Sweden and Sveriges Riksbank. Although there are many drivers explaining the move from cash to electronic payments, I would like to highlight two actions by the Riksbank.
But, the upward trajectory of the policy rate path should continue to be shallow, in part because the level of short-term interest rates consistent with keeping the economy on a sustainable long-run growth path is likely to be considerably lower than it was in prior business cycles. The process of balance sheet normalization—in which an increasing proportion of maturing Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) repayments are allowed to run off the Fed’s balance sheet—should also exert some monetary policy restraint over time. But, I believe this impact will be quite modest. Not only is this shift in policy now widely anticipated, but we have also seen that the impact on the level of long-term interest rates has been small as expectations have adjusted. Economic Outlook So, why do I anticipate that the economy will likely continue to grow at a slightly above-trend pace? The fundamentals supporting continued expansion are generally quite favorable. Low unemployment, sturdy job gains, and rising wages—even at a pace below previous expansions —are lifting personal income. Household wealth has been boosted by rising home and equity prices, and household debt has been growing relatively slowly, contributing to a healthy household balance sheet. Thus, consumer spending should continue to advance in coming quarters. Business fixed investment outlays are also likely to continue to rise. With the supply of labor tightening, there are greater incentives for businesses to invest in labor-saving technologies.

Assuming that this process begins later this year and continues uninterrupted, the balance sheet size would likely normalize in the early part of the next decade.4 There is uncertainty about the exact timing for several reasons. We don’t know how fast our agency MBS holdings will pre-pay, how quickly currency outstanding will grow, how many bank reserves will be required for the efficient execution of monetary policy, or the evolution of other liability items on the Fed’s balance sheet that affect the amount of bank reserves. Against that backdrop, one major issue that remains outstanding is whether the Fed will continue to operate with a “floor” system, in which the Fed maintains a relatively abundant supply of reserves and the effective federal funds rate is managed by periodic adjustments to the interest rate the Fed pays on bank reserves. Or, whether the Fed will move back to a “corridor” system, in which reserves are relatively scarce and the effective federal funds rate is managed by frequently adjusting the supply of reserves to meet demand at the desired federal funds rate level. In this type of regime, it is the quantity of reserves, rather than the interest rate the Fed pays on reserves, that is the primary driver of the federal funds rate.5 Having managed the System Open Market Account during the financial crisis—a period during which the demand for reserves was very volatile—I very much favor a floor-type system. It is much easier to manage on a day-to-day basis.
Importantly, growth was driven by a pick up in labour productivity and by faster employment growth. Closer economic integration with the EU led to increased business cycle synchronization, which meant that Malta was better placed to benefit from the common monetary policy of the ECB. Between 2005 and 2008, economic activity displayed an average bilateral correlation of over 82% with the euro area, up from 45% in the previous four years. 2 While EU funds also played an important role, economic expansion since 2005 has been largely driven by foreign direct investment (FDI), as the economy shifted towards higher value-added activities and exploited new niche markets opened up by EU membership. As a proportion of gross fixed capital formation, FDI inflows increased from an average of 56% in the period 2001-2004 to 93% during 2005-2007. Meanwhile, the stock of FDI stood at around 100% of GDP, an increase of more than half since 2003. 2  Business cycle synchronization is measured by the contemporaneous correlation of de-trended GDP levels in Malta and the euro area. The data were obtained from Eurostat and de-trended using the Hodrick-Prescott filter on quarterly statistics that were seasonally adjusted and adjusted by working days. 2  BIS Review 60/2009  At the same time, industry became increasingly oriented towards more capital intensive activities, such as generic pharmaceuticals, while the share of labour intensive operations such as textiles continued to decrease.

There is, however, no room for complacency because narrowing the income gap with the other euro area countries during a recession and a likely slow recovery will be a formidable task. This calls for a renewed impetus in the implementation of the structural reforms contained in Malta’s Lisbon Agenda programme, particularly the removal of remaining labour and product market rigidities and anticompetitive practices. It has also become clear that in spite of the undoubted protection they offer, neither EU nor euro area membership is a panacea for deep seated problems. The global financial crisis has put a premium on sound economic policies and the efficient use of scarce resources. A reordering of public expenditure priorities and an overhaul of the welfare system would be a major step in this direction. The implementation of the necessary structural and fiscal  9  Ebejer, Ivan and Mandl, Ulrike, The efficiency of public expenditure in Malta, published in February 2009 as ECFIN Country Focus (Volume 6, Issue 2). 6  BIS Review 60/2009  reforms, however, can only be achieved through a combined effort involving all the social partners. Finally, the current recession also serves as a poignant reminder of a basic truth in economics: living beyond your means – and particularly borrowing to finance consumption even in good times – is not sustainable. We would do well to heed the advice Cicero gave the citizens of Rome in 55 BC.
Rather, building upon the theme of your prior panel discussion, the risk that dominates from my parochial view is the escalating and evolving cyber threat to our financial and payment systems, representing the challenge of our generation. The orientation that I want to pursue, reflecting this audience, is not what we are doing within the Federal Reserve to harden our critical infrastructure. While that is a manic and consuming preoccupation it is not my focus today. Instead, I want to concentrate on endpoint security vulnerabilities to the payments system, in which partnership with the institutions in this room represents an indispensable element of success. Historically, market infrastructures have operated on the presumption that endpoint security is 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  principally the responsibility of the endpoint, and infrastructure security is principally the responsibility of the operator. In the United States, the legal framework for wholesale funds transfers codifies that presumption, with each actor assigned responsibility for that part of security most within its control. Yet, in the present environment endpoint security breaches can have serious implications for public confidence in the integrity of the network as a whole, even in circumstances when the operator’s infrastructure, applications, and security perimeter have not been compromised. A series of recent high profile events have underscored dramatically this endpoint security risk, a theme that has also captured the attention of global policy makers.

Another part of these reallocations (USD 37 billion at this stage) is about to become reality, by IMF Annual Meetings in October if everything goes according to plan, thanks to the newly created Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST). I am sure I agree with the Managing Director in wishing the RST to be higher in its amounts, quicker in its disbursements, and not too conditional in its provisions. Indeed if we want to fulfil our commitments, we have to care not only about the lending capacity of the RST, but also about demand for RST facilities. France will be true to its word and reallocate 4 billion SDRs, representing 20% of SDRs received. The IMF must play a greater role in crisis prevention for vulnerable countries. Despite recent initiatives, there is still considerable room for improvement to make the GFSN more effective for these countries, notably for prevention. This is even more pressing in a context of unstable geopolitics, looming food crisis, commodities price volatility and more frequent natural disasters linked to climate change. I therefore welcome the recent proposal of a new Food Shock Window. However, our efforts should not stop there. * ** As Sophocles wrote, “trust dies but mistrust blossoms”. Let me conclude by stressing that trust as a shared treasure also has a key human foundation, which  Page 10 sur 10 we have patiently built over time.
In December 2007, for the first time in its history, the SNB was able to provide its counterparties with US dollar liquidity against the usual SNB eligible collateral, thanks to a swap agreement with the Fed. In this context, it is important to point out that this dollar liquidity had no impact on either monetary policy or the SNB’s income statement. Yet it helped to facilitate refinancing by our counterparties, and thus made a positive contribution towards easing the tension on the Swiss franc money market. In this phase, the central banks supplemented their usual remedies with some booster treatments. The third wave of turbulence, in March this year, resulted from acute liquidity problems faced by individual international banks, combined with concerns that the money market problems might become chronic. In this third phase, the SNB did not provide any new instruments, preferring to make greater use of our existing tools. In particular, we resumed our US dollar auctions, at which we now offer USD 6 billion on a fortnightly basis. In this way, we are providing the market with a maximum of USD 12 billion. In addition, we are supplying the  BIS Review 80/2008  1  market with generous amounts of Swiss franc liquidity and actively engage in fine-tuning operations whenever necessary. Other central banks have opted for more wide-reaching measures over the past few months. For instance, the range of eligible participants and collateral for refinancing operations was expanded.

I would like to assure the public, that we will be consistent in our disciplined approach and we will continue to follow our plan for reforms in the banking sector focusing not on the issues of the past but on addressing effectively the challenges of the future in order to maintain financial stability and integrate successfully in the European financial infrastructure. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches
As of the second quarter of 2012, for those people with a credit report, average debt per person in New Jersey was about $ roughly unchanged over the past several years. Delinquency rates on that debt are high: 8.4 percent of all debt in the state is seriously delinquent, up from 7.4 percent in 2011 and above the national rate of 6.7 percent. So, many New Jersey households are still struggling with their finances. Although there are some recent signs that home prices in the state are starting to firm, nevertheless, the housing crisis continues to take a toll on our homeowners. As of June, 9.3 percent of all mortgage debt in New Jersey was 90-plus days delinquent, three percentage points above the national rate. And that delinquency rate is actually a little higher here in northern New Jersey. National economic conditions The performance of the U.S. economy since the end of the recession in 2009 has been disappointing. Real GDP has grown at an annual rate of just over 2 percent over this period, and it was even slower in the first half of 2012. As a result, employment gains have been modest, unemployment remains above 8 percent – an unacceptably high level – and participation in the jobs market remains depressed. Moreover, about 5 million workers have been unemployed for six months or more.

We therefore seek to minimize how far employment is from its long run normal level and inflation is from our longer-run goal of 2 percent on the PCE measure. Because monetary policy works with a time lag, we base policy not just on where the economy is today but where we expect it to be in the future. To do this, we make economic forecasts, based on data and insights from a broad range of economic models. We also take into account the balance of risks around our base case outlook. Looking ahead, in the absence of further monetary easing, I concluded that growth would remain too subdued over the next several years to make big inroads into the spare capacity that remains from the Great Recession. As a result, unemployment would remain unacceptably high, with economic risks skewed to the downside. Meanwhile, with substantial slack in labor markets and inflation expectations stable, inflation was likely to remain a bit below our 2 per cent longer-run objective. In this situation, I concluded that our policy framework means that further monetary policy easing was appropriate provided that the benefits of using the tools available outweighed the costs. In my judgment, this standard has been satisfied here. I am confident that the costs are manageable, based in part on the experience we have of using the tools these past four years and that the benefits substantially exceed the costs, recognizing, of course, that our actions are not so powerful that they will instantly transform the economic outlook.
As of the second quarter of 2012, for those people with a credit report, average debt per person in New Jersey was about $ roughly unchanged over the past several years. Delinquency rates on that debt are high: 8.4 percent of all debt in the state is seriously delinquent, up from 7.4 percent in 2011 and above the national rate of 6.7 percent. So, many New Jersey households are still struggling with their finances. Although there are some recent signs that home prices in the state are starting to firm, nevertheless, the housing crisis continues to take a toll on our homeowners. As of June, 9.3 percent of all mortgage debt in New Jersey was 90-plus days delinquent, three percentage points above the national rate. And that delinquency rate is actually a little higher here in northern New Jersey. National economic conditions The performance of the U.S. economy since the end of the recession in 2009 has been disappointing. Real GDP has grown at an annual rate of just over 2 percent over this period, and it was even slower in the first half of 2012. As a result, employment gains have been modest, unemployment remains above 8 percent – an unacceptably high level – and participation in the jobs market remains depressed. Moreover, about 5 million workers have been unemployed for six months or more.

Here again, though, I should add that we are always on the way towards our goals and will never actually meet them. Even in the conditions we enjoy, it is not easy to reach the necessary consensus. This brings me to the “human factor”. The background conditions I have been talking about are aimed in no small measure at enabling individuals to develop their own interests as well as those of society. This symbiosis is essential to the prosperity of the economy as a whole. Where human resources are concerned, what is needed most of all is adequate training, motivation and the right mentality. Over the course of time, the development of the economy and the associated structural change have constantly thrown up new challenges for everyone involved. This can be seen, for example, in the phenomenon of structural unemployment, arising from an imbalance in supply and demand for specific skills. Although the need for continuous training and retraining is nothing new, it has now become an urgent concern. But qualifications alone are not sufficient. They only come into their own when the people in question are also motivated. If we were to restrict ourselves purely to economic activities, we could leave it at that. But after what I said about the correlations between the economy and society, there is clearly more to it. In a democratic community, we don’t just need “economic subjects” who contribute their skills in specific areas and with the right mentality.
The position of banks is evaluated in two scenarios: a baseline scenario, taking as its starting point the European Commission’s forecasts, and an adverse scenario, approved by the European Systemic Risk Board, the European Union’s macroprudential surveillance body headquartered at the ECB. The stress test horizon of three years (2014–2016) is formulated using banks’ consolidated balance sheets at the close of 2013. Minimum thresholds have been set that banks must meet in respect of core capital, according to the Basel III Accord. These stand at 8% for the asset quality review exercise and for the stress test baseline scenario, and at 5.5% for the adverse scenario. Those banks below these thresholds will have two weeks to submit capital-raising plans, which should envisage coverage of the shortfalls identified. They will have six months to cover capital shortfalls identified in the asset quality review and in the baseline scenario of the stress tests, and nine months to cover shortfalls estimated under the adverse scenario. 3)  Allow me to refer, finally, to the Single Resolution Mechanism. Political agreements were reached last May between the European Parliament and Council to set up this Mechanism, comprising a network of national resolution authorities, the new Single Resolution Board and the Single Resolution Fund. The Regulation creating the Single Board and Fund was published on 30 July; since then work has continued on the elements that will enable the Mechanism to come on stream on 1 January 2015.

My colleague Arthur first presented this vision at the Hong Kong Fintech Week last November. On that occasion, we also announced a series of activities to be launched these two years in pursuit of the vision. And today’s event is one of the many activities that we have planned for this year, 2021. 5. In practical terms, how should we go about bringing our Regtech vision into reality? We do recognise that we are starting from a position in which many banking practitioners remain quite unclear about the concept of Regtech. They may be uncertain about what values Regtech might bring, or exactly how they should leverage on Regtech in order to bring about measurable benefits. Here, we see four essential actions that are needed to transform bank attitudes and practices towards Regtech. Four actions towards Regtech 2025 6. The first action is that we at the HKMA mustunderstand the Regtech landscape evolution in Hong Kong. It’s no good launching initiatives that are out of touch with what’s actually happening on the ground. We need to be able to map our progress towards Regtech 2025, and understand where our banks and other ecosystem partners are at in that journey. 7. Our White Paper on Regtech published in November last year provided a very good starting point, supplemented by the Regtech Adoption Index that we have just launched recently. These have shown that most banks here are already using at least some form of Regtech in their operations, most commonly in preventing and detecting financial crimes.