samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
3 Swedish consumers do not usually pay any charges to the banks for cash withdrawals and pay only an annual charge for holding a card. The retail trade pays charges to the banks for cash and for card payment services, but does not explicitly price these services to its own customers. The costs the retail trade has to bear in connection with payments are instead transferred to the consumers by means of general markups on goods prices. This means that nor does the retail trade give any signals to consumers regarding the costs of one form of payment or another. 1  See Humphrey, D., Kim, M., Vale, B., (2001) “Realizing the gains from electronic payments: Costs, pricing and payment choice”, Journal of Money, Credit & Banking 33, 216 -234 and Nyberg, L., Guibourg. G., (2003) “Card payments in Sweden”, Economic Review 2003, vol.2, Sveriges Riksbank, 29-39. 2  According to information from Norges Bank this was partly due to a combination of changed pricing and mergers of different card systems. 3  Guibourg, G. and Segendorf, B., (2007), “A note on the price and cost structure of retail payment services in the Swedish banking sector 2002”. Journal of Banking & Finance 31, 2817-2827. 2  BIS Review 68/2008  When are cash payments cost effective? But are cash payments more expensive to produce than card payments? Our study shows that this is often the case.

At first glance it would appear that card payments – which are 35 per cent cheaper for society to produce – should replace cash completely. But it is not quite so simple. There are major differences in how cards and cash are produced. Card payments require an extensive infrastructure of terminals, computers and lines of communication and have substantial fixed costs. But the cost of a card payment is always the same, regardless of whether one uses the card to pay for a purchase amounting to SEK 50 or SEK 50,000. For payments made in cash the variable costs are substantial. Cash payments require considerable physical management such as transport, counting, storage of banknotes, etc. The larger the transaction amount, the more expensive the actual cash payment will be, as it involves a larger share of this management. For payments of small amounts the cost of cash is therefore lower than the cost of a card payment. This means that from society’s point of view, cash may be preferable for making small payments. To obtain an idea of what the size of a transaction may mean, we estimated the costs to society of a cash payment and a card payment respectively as functions of the transaction amount. In this way we could also calculate when it was profitable to pay in cash. The results show that – at lease in 2002 – it was most cost-efficient to pay in cash for purchases amounting up to almost SEK 70. 7 Above this, card payments were always preferable.
From my vantage point, the key takeaway for liquidity provision is to consider how, in the context of the remuneration paid on these instruments and other features, demand for central bank liabilities might evolve and how it could shift in different environments. Again, this requires holistic thinking about the ecosystem in which both private and public digital currencies operate. Pillar 3: Liquidity facilities and backstops The third pillar of interest rate control is liquidity backstops. In most frameworks the supply of central bank liabilities and their rates of remuneration are the primary means of interest rate control. However, occasional shocks occur in money markets, and central banks provide liquidity backstops that promote interest rate control and smooth market functioning. In an environment with new public and private digital currencies, liquidity backstops for traditional banks may become even more important. As I noted, digital currencies could create competition for commercial bank deposits. This could enhance market efficiency and improve transmission of monetary policy, but it may also lead to swings in deposit flows that could unexpectedly shift a commercial bank’s liquidity position. This could in turn increase the potential for occasional variability in overnight rates and the need for central bank liquidity facilities. However, liquidity risk will also be an important consideration for new entrants, such as stablecoin issuers. Stablecoins backed entirely by central bank reserves would be less susceptible to liquidity risk than those backed with other assets.

The Funding for Lending Scheme: one year on It was on the day of this lecture last year that the Bank of England announced the first 13 banks and building societies to have signed up to the FLS. There are now over 40 firms participating, representing over 80% of the stock of lending to the UK economy. The total amount of outstanding drawings under the Scheme is over £ and rising. The MPC has been using a wide range of indicators at various stages of the transmission mechanism to help assess the extent to which credit conditions have improved since its launch. Let me run through those. Stage 1: bank funding costs Our first objective was to reduce bank funding costs – and this phase has been remarkably successful. Over the past year, those costs have fallen sharply (Chart 6). Of course, they are likely to have been affected by developments internationally, including Mario Draghi’s “do whatever it takes” remarks in July 2012. But usually sterling funding markets would react by less than euro-denominated markets to European developments. In fact, UK unsecured bond spreads fell further in the UK than in core euro-area countries – indicative of an additional boost from the FLS over and above general market developments.
Under normal circumstances, the real economic effects in the industrialised world from decreased trade with Brazil should be relatively limited. There is a risk, however, of the crisis also becoming more profound among Brazil’s neighbours, leading in time to somewhat larger repercussions in the industrialised countries as well. The effects via financial markets could be greater in the short run but developments to date in this respect have been better than many feared. The picture in other parts of the world economy at the end of 1998 is somewhat varied. Growth in the U.S. economy is still good, whereas the slowdown in the euro area has become  BIS Review 18/1999  2  slightly more marked than many observers counted on and we have yet to see an economic recovery in Japan. The sustained strength of the U.S. economy is mainly due to the unbroken growth of private consumption – the slowdown that was foreseen in our December Inflation Report has still to materialise. The stock exchange has recovered from last autumn’s fall and even reached new all-time highs. Together with a positive development of employment, this has helped improve the confidence of American consumers. In time, however, a slowdown in the U.S. economy still seems probable; but the course to date does suggest that it will not occur as soon as the Riksbank expected earlier, in which case the trend in 1999 may be stronger. A more dramatic downturn could occur if the U.S. stock markets were to fall markedly.

Even so, the real level of interest rates is expected to remain low and should act as a stimulus to the Swedish economy, above all in the somewhat longer run. The domestic economy In our December Inflation Report, the GDP growth rate was assumed to be between 2.5 and 3 per cent in 1998, between 2 and 2.5 per cent in 1999 and around 2.5 per cent in 2000. The available statistics suggest that our forecast for 1998 is probably correct. For 1999 and 2000, however, we consider that the December forecasts are somewhat too optimistic. One of the items we believe may be weaker is foreign trade. With the poorer outlook for the international economy, net exports could be lower in the years ahead. Industrial activity may then also continue to slacken. The expectations of Swedish firms are low, above all in manufacturing, and this could have a downward effect on investment. On the other hand, the statistics show that private consumption is still strong, with a 1998 third-quarter increase that exceeded expectations. House prices and the number of new cars registered are continuing to rise and retail turnover is also moving upwards. Other signs are increased lending to households and the growth of the money supply. Households are optimistic about their own economic situation, one reason being the growth of real disposable  BIS Review 18/1999  4  wage income; a marked increase in 1999 is implied by the low level of inflation and the tax cuts.
Speech at the Press Conference: Collaboration on Adopting Standardized QR Code for e-Payment Dr. Veerathai Santiprabhob, Governor Wednesday 30 August 2017 Bank of Thailand ……………………………………………………… Executives from American Express, JCB International, Mastercard, VISA and UnionPay International President of Thai Bankers' Association President of Government Financial Institutions Council President of Association of International Banks President of Thailand Electronic Payment Trade Association President of the Telecommunications Association of Thailand under the Royal Patronage Press members and distinguished guests, I am very pleased that all payment service providers in Thailand are here to announce their collaboration on adopting QR Code standard for payments. This is considered an important milestone for which the standardized QR Code has been implemented in Thailand. It is also the first time that five international payment card network providers and Thai financial service providers have mutually agreed to adopt the same QR Code standard in providing payment services in Thailand. It is recognized that electronic payment (e-Payment) is a crucial component in driving a digital economy, where technologies have been utilized to deliver better services for consumers and businesses, to increase financial inclusion, to raise efficiency and to reduce costs; thus, enhancing the country’s competitiveness and supporting ‘ease of doing business’ principle.

The single standard will not only reduce system development costs of all participants but also allow for connectivity among various service providers, promoting the principles of open infrastructure and  3  interoperability. Specifically, each service provider does not need to develop their own QR Code format. In addition, merchants will be able to receive both domestic and international payment transactions, and they can accept funds from various sources including credit card, debit card, e-Wallet account and bank account. The second is introducing cost-efficient payment channel. QR Code payment is perfectly fit to new lifestyle of customers who usually have mobile phone with them and willing to use mobile payment. These customers can conveniently use their mobile application to read merchants’ QR Code to pay for their purchases. Merchants, especially SMEs, will be able to accept e-Payment with lower costs. They can have their QR Code and present to customers for scanning right away. One QR Code can be used to accept customer’s payments from various channels. Moreover, merchants can directly have payments deposited into their bank account or e-Wallet account that is linked with PromptPay service. With QR Code payment, cash flow management, bookkeeping, and reconciliation processes are much easier than those of cash transactions. This effectively eases operational burdens and reduces business costs. The third is enhancing payment security. Scanning QR Code via mobile application will increase security of payment card usage because customers are not required to provide their card or card information to merchants and thus have less concerns over frauds.
As a rule, small open economies that joined the club over the nineties felt that a managed float regime would serve them better. This was also the line pursued by the NBR when introducing inflation targeting in 2005, with the extensive technical support generously offered by the IMF and the Czech National Bank. At that time, inflation targeting seemed poised to become the monetary policy framework in most countries that did not have fixed exchange rate regimes in place – and this was still the case only a few years ago. However, the global crisis broke out and changed the order of priorities on policymakers’ agenda. It remains to be seen how inflation targeting will adapt to the post-crisis economic and financial environment, which also challenges the overriding importance of the low inflation goal. While monetary targeting failed to survive for reasons of the break in the monetary aggregates-inflation relation (in other words, the nominal anchor was unable to actually “anchor” inflation), inflation targeting will have to rely more on its flexible component, be it constrained, in order to be successful in an environment where financial stability needs particular attention. 2. Exchange rate arrangements: from managed float to corner solutions and back again  As I mentioned earlier, let me turn now to the developments in exchange rate arrangements. In the early nineties, when I became Governor, almost two thirds of the countries had some form of managed float. By the end of the same decade, their share had dropped to around one third.

It was now visible to the naked eye, without requiring sophisticated econometric models, that distortions from relatively high inflation are second order relative to losses from financial sector distortions (Stiglitz, 2010). That being said, it is safe to assume the crisis also shattered the illusion that the great challenges to the monetary policy decision-making framework have been overcome at least in part. Reality proved much too complicated to be managed based strictly on ideal theoretical schemes. In other words, textbook economics was no longer in tune with financial market realities. This also calls for rethinking the connections or retracing the boundaries between price stability and financial stability. The global crisis has once again drawn the attention of economic policymakers and theorists to the issue of separating or integrating price stability and financial stability tasks. The idea that the two tasks should be completely separated had gained ground before the outbreak of the crisis. The rationale behind this view was to free the monetary policy conduct from conflicting objectives and thus render policymakers’ mission and life easier. Following this line of thought, it was considered that two distinct entities should be in charge of the two tasks respectively. In particular, it was advocated that banking sector supervision should no longer be assigned to the central bank, but rather to an independent agency (which might also ensure the consolidated supervision of all financial markets).
However, the most common proposed uses are different forms of financial transactions, accounting and auditing. A number of payment solutions have been raised in the international debate. One alternative is that the central bank operates a decentralised system that is open to all private individuals and businesses in a country. The currency unit could be a variant of the central bank currency, either a form of “electronic cash” or for use in bank settlement. This raises a series of fundamental questions to which we do not have the answers today – how this would affect banks’ funding and credit provision, the division of roles between the private and public sector, and how monetary policy would function. Another alternative is a network consisting of banks that settle customer payments immediately using the new technology. Each bank obtains funds to be used in the network by drawing down on the bank’s account holdings with the central bank. An alternative is also to allow the banks’ customers to participate directly in the network. Securities settlement has been cited as another relevant area for decentralised technology. Funds and securities can be stored in a network, and so-called “smart contracts” ensure that delivery is made against payment. An idea that has been mentioned is that securities depositories and central banks would administer participation and regulate access to securities and funds. Securities companies and banks would settle trades in the network on behalf of investors.

The 2008 subprime crisis is a textbook example of how backward-looking data is not a good indicator for the future economic environment. Hence, organisations need to be pragmatic and shift towards more forward-looking and proactive risk identification, assessment and management. In a recent financial industry survey conducted by the Bank to gauge the top operational risks among financial institutions, it is evident that most financial institutions are still focused only on “typical” risks such as card fraud and operational errors, rather than proactively anticipating and preparing against emerging risks. This has to change. In this regard, the Bank highly encourages pre-emptive and forward-looking risk management practices such as scenario analysis to anticipate the potential impact of future threats to an organisation and provide sufficient time for remedial actions to be taken. Incorporating culture into risk management Let me now move on to another element that a good risk manager cannot ignore, which is the importance of incorporating culture into enterprise risk management. At the heart of every corporate scandal is the failure of the people at different levels of the institution to uphold the highest standards of ethical behaviour and integrity. This is the reason why organisations need to do more than just comply with rules and regulations. The accounting scandal at a major Japanese conglomerate recently, illustrates this point. The company was once seen as exemplary in corporate governance. Such was its reputation that it frequently appeared as a case study in books on governance.
Last year, we also discussed the significance of education, work organisation and intangible investments. 1  Svante Öberg, “Productivity and monetary policy”, 7 June 2007 and Svante Öberg, “Monetary policy and productivity”, 29 January 2008. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  In conjunction with the financial crisis, GDP then fell by over five per cent in 2009, before rising again by over five per cent in 2010. Productivity in the economy as a whole, measured as GDP per hour worked, decreased for two consecutive years by a total of over four per cent. I will later address the possible reasons for this and the possible consequences. But I will start with the significance of resource utilisation for monetary policy. Resource utilisation is of great significance to monetary policy According to the Sveriges Riksbank Act, the objective for monetary policy is to maintain price stability. At the Riksbank, we have interpreted this to mean that we should strive to hold inflation, measured in terms of the consumer price index, at two per cent per year. We have been clear about the CPI being the target variable. But we also follow a number of other inflation measures to analyse and better understand the development of inflation: the CPI with a fixed interest rate (CPIF), CPIF excluding energy, the EU-harmonised measure HICP and several measures of underlying inflation.2 There are two reasons for the Riksbank to care about resource utilisation, in addition to price stability.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  assessments of the level of resource utilisation can lead to different views of how monetary policy ought to be conducted. It is therefore essential that more analyses are conducted to better understand what it is that determines the development of output and potential GDP in conjunction with financial crises and deep recessions. One important factor behind the development of potential GDP seems to be total factor productivity (TFP). This is particularly troublesome as TFP itself is often counted as an unexplained residual. One possible way forward could be to combine the production function approach with economic short-term statistics to analyse how TFP behaves in normal cyclical fluctuations and in deep recessions. The almost unique opportunities for Sweden to conduct analyses based on micro data for individuals and companies should be a major asset in this regard. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figures and tables 1. Actual and trend GDP Logarithmed levels 6.5  6.5 GDP  6.0  6.0  Trend  5.5  5.5  5.0  5.0  4.5  4.5 50  55  60  65  70  75  80  85  90  95  00  05  10  Note. HP trend derived solely from annual data 1950–2010. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  2.
Everyone is affected, and events in one country affect all other countries too. I hope that this is clear to the decision-makers. In terms of monetary policy, we will do our part to prevent fragmentation in the euro area. The border closures and all the different national arrangements we’ve seen suggest that it is more like “everyone for himself” at the moment. 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  The primary goal has to be to contain the spread of the virus. It may be that closing borders is an appropriate step from that point of view. That’s something that virologists are best placed to judge. But it’s clear that all protective measures come at an economic cost. And that is precisely why we need coordinated action, so that we can avoid deepening the crisis. But not every country can afford that. That’s true, and that’s precisely why we need European cooperation. What we need now is European solidarity, also in financial terms. That is in the interest of all European countries. Is it even possible now to prevent a recession as a result of the virus crisis? We are experiencing a very severe economic shock. Supply chains are being disrupted and, at the same time, demand is contracting as governments introduce protective measures: people are travelling less than before and cannot go out to restaurants and bars. Falling confidence may also dampen consumption and investment. And if people are not able to go to work, that has an impact on production, depending on the sector.

Isabel Schnabel: Interview in Die Zeit Interview with Ms Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, in Die Zeit, conducted by Ms Lisa Nienhaus on 16 March 2020 and published on 18 March 2020. * * *  Ms Schnabel, where are you speaking from at the moment: your home office? No, I’m in the main building of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. As the board member responsible for market operations, I need to be on site. But many of us, including other members of the ECB’s Executive Board, are indeed working from home. And I am also keeping at a safe distance from colleagues. Indeed, it would not be good if you were absent from the ECB. Market prices are collapsing, loans are defaulting, firms are threatened by bankruptcy if they don’t get help. Is the virus crisis now turning into a financial crisis? We are living through turbulent times: stock markets are showing exteme volatility, equity prices have fallen dramatically. And the events are gradually being reflected in the data that we receive from the real economy. We know that production in China collapsed in January and February. All that will also have an impact on the banking system, but there is no acute banking crisis at present. We are, however, carefully monitoring the current situation so that we are able to respond swiftly to new developments should that become necessary. Which indicators are you looking at?