samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Could 4  countries with declining transactional cash usage see the need to issue their own digital currencies? Could new technologies such as the distributed ledger help central banks’ to improve the resilience and efficiency 5  of their own payments and settlements infrastructure? How do central banks protect their own operations from ever more sophisticated forms of cyber threat? And how do supervisors keep up with ever more detailed and high-frequency regulatory and market data reporting, and use it to make more informed and timely decisions? The Bank of England has been a leading voice in these policy debates, and has produced, or contributed to, 6  a wide range of speeches, policy reports and technical analysis . But talk is not enough: true understanding also requires central banks to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with the technology itself. The Bank’s FinTech accelerator: what is it? That is why, in mid-2016, the Bank of England launched its FinTech accelerator project. We had two objectives in mind. First, to improve our familiarity with FinTech products, concepts and firms: their strengths and weaknesses, their implications for financial markets, and their potential applications in central bank operations. And, second, to give FinTech firms some insight into the emerging questions and needs central banks might have, as policymakers, regulators and operators. 4  The urgency of this question depends heavily on individual countries’ circumstances. In the United Kingdom, the demand for cash continues to rise.

2  BIS Review 5/2005  Further, may I also take this opportunity to inform Your Excellency that our French lessons programme has become so popular among staff that we are sponsoring another class of beginners and six (6) more staff with appreciable knowledge of the language at the Alliance Française. Finally, I will be remiss in my speech if I did not thank Your Excellency for the assistance we have continued to receive in form of: (i)  meeting the full cost of hiring two tutors from Alliance Francaise - Lusaka and Ndola;  (ii)  supply of study materials;  (iii)  coordination of examinations; and, most importantly,  (iv)  your unwavering moral support. To this end, we, at the Bank do sincerely believe that although this MoU will expire in September 2005, its legacy shall linger on and that the signing of this MoU will further cement the cordial relations existing between the Embassy of France and the Bank. I thank you. BIS Review 5/2005  3
This partly reflects the global trend towards lower neutral interest rates observed in recent years and is consistent with the reduction in the trend growth estimate for Chile. The technical minimum of the MPR is kept at 0.5 percent. As in March 2020, this considered that the money market is managed by various administrators competing with each other and with banks. Among others, they offer quick exit investment instruments that allow them to meet the immediate cash needs of households and businesses, being able to withdraw their funds the following day. When selling these instruments, there may be price differences that need to be covered. Therefore, as the MPR approaches zero, the probability that firms and households will incur losses increases. To keep this mechanism in operation, the Board estimates that the technical minimum of the MPR is 0.5 percent. Still, it is important to note that this technical minimum is not a constraint for an expansionary monetary policy, thanks to the fact that we are far from a deflationary scenario. Moreover, the interbank rate can move within a corridor of ±25 basis points around the MPR and, in fact, in periods of high monetary expansion, it has been below the technical minimum. This has been the case in the last year and was also the case in 2009, when the MPR also hit 0.5 percent and the Bank used its Term Liquidity Facility (FLAP). 1  It should be noted that the present exercise has used TFP information from the last four years.

When analysing the state of the economy I have focused on understanding how much can be attributed to cyclical fluctuations and how much to structural factors. In practice it is of course difficult to precisely distinguish between structural and cyclical factors, but it is nevertheless important to analyse this as monetary policy can only affect the latter. I have also asked myself what the relatively strong development of the Swedish household sector in relation to the weaker situation in the industrial sector means for monetary policy. All in all, I thought it was reasonable to leave the repo rate unchanged, for two main reasons. First, I think it would be wrong to lower the repo rate further in a situation in which the economy is improving. Second, I believe that a lower repo rate today could increase the risks associated with household indebtedness in the longer term. I will now explain my thinking about monetary policy today in more detail and describe how I see the current situation in the Swedish economy, what I believe monetary policy can achieve and how I see the situation in the period ahead. Divided demand – the explanation is to be found abroad I would like to begin by looking back in order to describe my view of the situation today. Approximately five years have passed since the financial crisis began in earnest and these have been turbulent years for the global economy.
“Smooth Landing or Crash? Model Based Scenarios of Global Current Account Rebalancing”, NBER Working Paper 11583; O. Blanchard et al. „The U.S. Current Account and the Dollar”, NBER Working Paper 11137 and many others. 4  BIS Review 19/2006  thanks to the intensified scale of those phenomena and thanks to including an increasing number of countries into the international economic processes. Taking into consideration the labour market, it may be observed that the inclusion of the CEE countries as well as the former Soviet Union countries, India, China, and other developing countries resulted in an increase in the global labour supply of 2 billion workers. Thus, we are witnesses to the establishment of the global labour market. Actions of international corporations undertaken to relocate manufacturing or orders to countries with lower manufacturing costs simply make use of the existing comparative advantages. The foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow between 1990 and 2004 increased more than threefold, amounting to ca. USD 648 billion in 2004. In the same period, the FDI inflow to developing countries was six times higher and in 2004 it amounted to USD 233 billion 17 . A significant factor contributing to intensification of the above phenomena is trade liberalisation, which involves reduction or elimination of customs tariff rates and all other non-tariff barriers that increase the costs of trade. Studies undertaken so far 18 point to a significant role of preferential trade agreements, which in the years 1993-1997 involved about 70% of all trade exchange of West European countries.

The project of the City Council of Rzeszow, under which 60% of the city’s area will have a free access to the Internet, may serve as an example here. A parallel creation of a radio telephone network, allowing free calls between public institutions and the city inhabitants, make a step forward in the right direction. On the other hand, the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy Ms. Danuta Hübner has emphasised how structural funds support development and innovation 31 : “Let me present an example of a project whose implementation was made possible thanks to the Structural Funds. Here in Poland, the administration uses the European Regional Development Fund in order to create a research lab for the aviation industry in the vicinity of Rzeszow. The goal of the project is to create a modern centre equipped with the state-of-the-art research infrastructure and  28  A. Blinder, “Fear of Offshoring”, CEPS Working Paper No. 119, December 2005. 29  B. van Ark, “Europe’s Productivity Gap: Catching Up or Getting Stuck?”, an article prepared for the International Symposium on Productivity, Competitiveness and Globalisation, Banque de France, Paris, 4 November 2005. 30  R. H. McGuckin, III, M. Spiegelman, B. van Ark, “The Retail Revolution - Can Europe Match U.S. Productivity Performance?”, The Conference Board, March 2005. 31  Speeches by the Regional Policy Commissioner Ms. Danuta Hübner at the conference RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONS – AN OPPORTUNITY FOR CONVERGENCE REGIONS, Warsaw, 13 February, 2006. BIS Review 19/2006  7  specialised equipment for testing of materials.
Sources: Adolfson, M., M. Andersson, J. Lindé, M. Villani and A. Vredin, (2007a), “Modern Forecasting Models in Action: Improving Macroeconomic Analyses at Central Bank”, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 3, December, pp.111-144. 10  For a more detailed justification of the decision to publish our own interest rate forecast, see Irma Rosenberg’s speech “Riksbank to introduce own path for the repo rate”, held on 17 January 2007. BIS Review 77/2008  9  Adolfson, M., S. Laséen, J. Lindé and M. Villani, (2007b), ”RAMSES – a new general equilibrium model for monetary policy analysis”, Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review, no. 2. Blinder, A.S. and C. Wyplosz, (2004), “Central Bank Talk: Committee Structure and Communication Policy”, Working Paper, prepared for the ASSA meeting, Philadelphia, January 7-9, 2005. Dincer, N.N. and B. Eichengreen, (2007), “Central Bank Transparency: Where, Why and with What Effects?” National Institute of Economic Research Working Paper 13003. Rosenberg, I., “Riksbank to introduce own path for the repo rate”, 17 January 2007. Pollard, P., (2004), “Monetary Policy-Making around the World”, Powerpoint presentation, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 10  BIS Review 77/2008

A general assessment was that in the Swedish economy’s present cyclical phase, it is important that monetary policy does not remain expansionary for too long. Considering the time lag associated with monetary policy’s effects, a change to a less expansionary stance must be made in good time before resource utilisation becomes excessively high. The stated aim was that this would provide better conditions for more sustained increases in production and employment. Against this background, when the inflation report had been presented, the repo rate was increased in December by 25 basis points, from 4.10 to 4.35 per cent. In periods of financial unrest in international markets there is often a “flight to quality”; savers and investors experience uncertainty and rearrange their portfolios in favour of what are perceived as secure assets. In connection with the Mexican crisis in the spring of 1995, Sweden’s currency depreciated sharply and bond rates rose substantially; this amounted to a flight from Sweden. In view of the krona’s recent weakening tendency, it would be going too far to talk of a flight to Sweden but the fact remains that the situation differs from earlier occasions with international financial unrest. Even so, a correction of the present under-valuation of the krona would be a good thing. The conclusion from this is that the increased confidence which Swedish economic policy has earned in recent years must be nurtured continuously, not least to make us resilient to turbulent times.
7 [14]  markedly and resulted in a price and wage build-up process, where wage costs rose by at most about 20 per cent a year. The Minister of Finance at the time, Per Edvin Sköld, took a number of measures: Excise duty on sales of cars was raised, building regulations were tightened, the forest industry had to deposit some of its large profits in special accounts and an investment tax was introduced.19 The interest rate was also raised by half a percentage point, which, according to a modern yardstick, may seem rather modest given the circumstances. Altogether, this meant that inflation was short-lived on this occasion too, and it is also known in the history books as the ‘one-off inflation’ (engångsinflationen). Expansionary policy during the most recent inflation period The longer period of high inflation from the early 1970s onwards is, of course, the first one I remember myself. The link to war is not as obvious as in the previous episodes, but it is definitely there (see Figure 2). The two oil crises in 1973-74 and 1979-80, often referred to as OPEC I and OPEC II, play quite an important role in this process OPEC I was preceded by the so-called Yom Kippur War of 1973 between Egypt and Syria on the one hand and Israel on the other. OPEC II is linked to the revolution in Iran in 1979, which led to a significant loss of oil production that was not matched by the other oil-producing countries.

Meanwhile, aiming to enhance connectivity, since June of last year the Bank of Thailand has undertaken Foreign Exchange Regulation Reform to relax 4/5  rules on foreign exchange controls and make foreign exchange-related transactions more digital, flexible, and accessible. To give a few examples, foreign exchange transaction forms were completely abolished, which should reduce document-related burden for the private sector; the working scopes of money changers and money transfer agents are expanded so that they can better facilitate retail cross-border transactions; and commercial banks can now provide direct Thai Baht loan to non-resident companies established in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). These efforts will improve connectivity as well as ease of doing business in our region. Fourth, we must foster greater cooperation on cyber security to ensure resilience of our financial systems. Arising with new forms of financial technology is our increased reliance on data transmitting devices and data usage; these come with greater risks of cyber threat. And, globally the number of threat incidents have been rising. Cyber security should be one, if not, the top priority for catalysts like us going forward. Ladies and gentlemen, The Bank of Thailand looks forward to working closely with other central banks, government agencies and, very importantly, private sector participants in the ACMECS region to support adoption of financial technology to promote economic and financial developments.
6  BIS Review 62/2008  Many schemes rely on a mutual responsibility, where the remaining banks will come up with the financing to cover the insured depositors of a failed bank, in some cases relying on a fund which has been built up in advance. This works fine as long as it is only small banks that suffer problems. However, if a larger bank is affected, there is a risk that the problems will spread as other banks are forced to contribute substantial funds from their own balance sheets. Given that many markets are very concentrated, with a few banks dominating the market, the failure of the largest banks will be difficult to finance in these kinds of mutual systems. Particularly vulnerable are the kind of small private schemes which rely solely on the remaining banks coming up with money after a failure. The deposit guarantee can then rather become a destabilising factor without the problem bank necessarily needing to be a particularly important actor in the payment system or on the financial markets. Clearly, you want to avoid a situation where government intervention may be necessary simply because of a poorly designed deposit guarantee system. A solution to the problem was put forward in a Swedish government enquiry a few years ago. The trick is to make the banks internalise the cost of the guarantee not at the industry level, but at the level of the individual bank.

The recent experiences in the UK, the US and Germany with extraordinary measures needed to deal with the crises in the building society Northern Rock, the investment firm Bear Sterns and the bank IKB respectively, is a reminder that these situations can, and in many cases have, surfaced anywhere. They also seem to confirm that the measures that you wish to take may be in conflict with laws and regulations which were not drafted with the specificity of a banking crisis in mind, but nevertheless apply to banks in these situations. A telling example is the Northern Rock experience, where it was assessed that the preferred option to fix a private takeover might be difficult to arrange given the design of the regulations on insider trading and take-overs. More generally, there is also a debate on whether measures that restrict the rights of the existing shareholders might be in conflict with company law and even with human rights more generally, and on whether guarantees extended might be in conflict with state aid rules. I want to make it clear that I have no views on market abuse regulations, regulations on shareholder rights in company law or state aid rules as such. They fulfil an important function and as far as I can see usually work well together. The fact that human rights must be respected can hardly be called into question. And I wish to emphasise that I do not call into question the role of the EU in the regulation of our markets.
Protecting economic muscle: Finance and the Covid crisis Speech given by Alex Brazier, Executive Director for Financial Stability Strategy and Risk, Bank of England Member of the Financial Policy Committee  CFO Virtual Agenda 23 July 2020  I am grateful to Imane Bakkar, Alina Barnett, Kiman Bassi, Richard Button, Mai Daher, Lee Foulger, Dan Gray, Benjamin King, Philip King, Sophie Stone, Matt Waldron, and Danny Walker for their assistance in preparing these remarks. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  These are immensely challenging and uncertain times for many of you. You have faced the reality of the economic numbers that hit the headlines: the precipitous fall in output, followed more recently by the beginnings of a normalisation in some sectors as public health measures have been eased. The path followed by the economy in recent months has had more to do with epidemiology than economics. How the public health situation, and therefore the economy, evolve over the coming months and quarters remains to be seen. The target of economic policy has been to minimise the longer-term ‘scarring’ of our economy’s muscle; muscle that is made up of your and other businesses. The aim is to minimise the harm to our productive capacity – to allow output and employment to get as close as possible to their pre-covid paths, once public health measures are lifted fully. Scarring could arise easily.

9  See May 2020 Federal Reserve Financial Stability Report 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  6  From where they are today, these highly indebted companies may find equity to be the only – if any – source of finance to minimise the damage to their productive capacity. This leads to the second motivation for equity. Some of these companies may struggle. As will others who were already being challenged by underlying structural shifts in the economy, some of which have probably been accelerated in recent months. A fifth of the companies facing cash-flow deficits had poor profit performance even before the virus disruption. It would always be tough for companies in that position to raise new finance to withstand the disruption. These issues – debt and structural change – mean some companies will be forced to make cuts and some may fail or close. The number of paid employees has fallen by around 700,000 since February10. And we have seen announcements of plans for over 100,000 redundancies. Unemployment and business insolvencies will rise. If we are to limit the extent of economic scarring, new muscle must be created to replace that which is lost. Businesses must be born and be able to grow, to seize new opportunities, create new productive capacity and new opportunities for employment. And that will require new equity.
We envisage that these could operate alongside the digital pound and alongside commercial bank money and cash. The digital pound could act as a bridging asset between different types of privately issued digital money and establish standards for interoperability. And, crucially, the requirement for privately issued digital money to be exchangeable on demand and at par for Bank of England digital pounds would help secure the interchangeability and uniformity of money in the UK. Finally, many central banks, across the globe are exploring the issuance of a central bank digital currency for both retail and wholesale purposes. A few have now been launched[15]. Page 10  There is clearly a great opportunity and a great need for international cooperation in this area. Interoperability between national and regional central bank digital currencies could bring substantial benefits by reducing the cost and frictions in cross border payments. At the same time, there are broader macro-economic and geopolitical issues that need to be considered. The Bank of England is working actively on these issues with international counterparts through the Bank for International Settlements Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), through the G7, the G20 and FSB and through close cooperation with a small group of advanced economy central banks[16]. Conclusion To conclude, the Consultation Paper and accompanying Technology Working Paper marks the end of the first stage of the work of the Bank of England – HM Treasury Taskforce.

Jessica Chew Cheng Lian: Launch of Financial Literacy Month 2022 Opening remarks by Ms Jessica Chew Cheng Lian, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Launch of Financial Literacy Month 2022, Kuala Lumpur, 1 October 2022. *** 1. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to Sasana Kijang for the launch of the Financial Literacy Month 2022. On behalf of the Financial Education Network, I thank you for your presence here to join us in flagging off a month-long roadshow to help people across the country build greater confidence in financial matters. It is especially gratifying for our teams to be able to go on the road again, to meet and talk to people in person after what has been a difficult period for many. 2. This is the third year that the Financial Education Network is holding a financial literacy month. And while we have lined up many activities and programmes over the coming month, I know that no one here believes financial education starts and stops within a month. I was reminded again of this as we are about to share the results of the most recent Financial Capability and Inclusion Demand Side Survey, or the FCI Survey, in short, that was conducted in 2021. This is a survey that we carry out once in every three years to track how the level of financial capability in our society – measured in terms of financial knowledge, behaviour and attitudes – is changing over time. 3.