samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Developed countries must make costly, complex, yet unavoidable adjustments. The experience of the developed world confirms the need to safeguard macroeconomic balances, both public and private, as well as a strong, well regulated financial system. The fragility of financial systems and fiscal accounts of some developed economies have caused a recoiling of living standards and could compromise their growth ability for a long while. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 1 Gross domestic product  (index, IV.2007=100, quarterly series) 115  115  110  110  105  105  100  100  95  95  90  90  IV.07  IV.08 Chile  IV.09 U.S.  Eurozone  IV.10 U.K.  Sources: Central Bank of Chile and Bloomberg. Figure 2 Real exchange rates around the world (index, July 1994-July 2011 average = 100)  180  160  160  140  140  120  120  100  100  80  80  60  60 Russia Brazil Czech Rep. Australia Hungary Canada Indonesia Switzerland N. Zealand Poland India Philippines Turkey China Chile Thailand South Africa Israel Norway Mexico Peru Malaysia Eurozone Japan South Korea Sweden U.S. U.K.  180  Range (*)  Spot  Average  (*) The range shows peaks and troughs of the local currency during indicated period. The scale has been adjusted to 180. The peak value for this country was 225. Sources: Central Bank of Chile and Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Thomas Jordan: The Swiss franc – a success story Address by Mr Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the launch of the book Der Schweizer Franken – eine Erfolgsgeschichte (The Swiss franc – a success story), Zurich, 3 October 2012. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to begin by welcoming you all to the launch of the book Der Schweizer Franken – eine Erfolgsgeschichte. Since this book was commissioned by the Swiss National Bank, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words as to how it came about. After I have finished, first Hans-Peter Thür, publishing director of NZZ Libro, and then Professor Baltensperger, the book’s author, will speak to you. After their comments, and before we close this event with a standing lunch, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. The German theologist, Hans von Keler, 1 is said to have commented “History is more than what has already happened; it is the layers of the past beneath our feet, the ground on which we lay our foundations”, and it seems to me to be particularly fitting for today’s book launch. Institutions do not just fall from the sky – they are created by people. Switzerland’s present monetary and currency institutions have come into being as the result of a gradual process. Professor Baltensperger’s book is an impressive account of the efforts to establish sound institutions over a period of more than 150 years.
In economies across the world, new issuance of corporate debt and listing of new companies came to a halt, posing an enormous challenge for the banking channel to sustain economic activities: as we have seen, in many cases that challenge was insurmountable. At the same time, the financial crisis grew to such exceptional proportions that governments worldwide had to implement a series of rescue measures of a kind never seen before, using public money to bail out the banking system. In a globalised world, it would be complacent to say that Hong Kong will continue to be less affected than their counterparts in Europe and the US: it is likely that the falling prices of financial assets, the economic downturn and other unfavourable factors will inevitably affect banks' asset quality and drive up the ratio of nonperforming loans. Nevertheless, it is also true that Hong Kong has entered this crisis in a position of strength and should be able to weather it relatively well. Despite the complex and stressful financial environment, the fundamentals of the banking sector in Hong Kong has remained strong and sound. The local banking sector here is well capitalised, at 13.8%, with a strong liquidity position averaging 45% in the fourth quarter of last year. The asset quality of retail banks is also high by historical standards, with preliminary figures showing overall non-performing loan ratio edging marginally from below 1% before the global financial crisis to just above 1% at the end of 2008.

Financial conditions might be adversely affected were there to be a sudden reversal in this process, in particular if that reversal were to bring about sharp price corrections, especially in less liquid market segments. Second, there are also worries about low profitability. The comprehensive assessment deemed solvency to be comfortably acceptable, but profitability in the banking industry remains prone to downside pressures, particularly in a macroeconomic setting that is worse than was expected some months back. Low returns hamper organic capital accumulation and raise doubts over the medium-term sustainability of banking activities. Banks will have to adapt their strategies and business models to enhance their profitability in a sustained fashion. Finally, I would highlight the risk of concerns re-emerging over the sustainability of sovereign debt, especially against a background of low nominal growth. This risk has not fully abated and might rear up again in the event of a substantial macroeconomic downturn. These three risks are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, a common denominator they share is the current weakness of euro area economic growth. But, irrespective of the transmission channels through which sluggish economic growth may translate into financial instability, it is precisely this weakness in nominal growth in the European economy that is the main risk to the area at present. The Spanish banking industry The Spanish banking industry is not immune to these risks.
Charlotte Gerken: Adaptability and resilience in the mutuals sector Speech by Ms Charlotte Gerken, Executive Director of Insurance Supervision of the Bank of England, at the Association of Financial Mutuals Conference, London, 4 October 2021 * * * Good afternoon and thank you very much for the invitation to speak today. Colleagues who have attended the AFM conference previously have valued this opportunity to meet AFM members face to face and I have already enjoyed that privilege today. I can’t say how pleased I am now, not to be speaking to a camera dot on a laptop screen. Over the last 18 months, supervisory colleagues at the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) have been working closely with insurers as they addressed the financial, economic and operational aspects of the pandemic, and the human impact it has had on their own people, the staff they rely on in other organisations and their customers and members. We have seen the mutual sector demonstrating its adaptability and resilience, through moving many of its in-person processes online and by providing financial support to members, such as premium rebates and payment holidays, where appropriate. Through the challenges of Covid-19, the PRA has taken a proportionate approach to supervision of mutual and other firms, by delaying thematic reviews, scaling back reporting requirements and extending regulatory deadlines all in the interest of ensuring a greater degree of flexibility, and where possible support for firms, during challenging times.

In 2006, the name was changed to the Government Pension Fund – Global. In spite of the name change, the Fund is more similar to an endowment than to a pension fund. Since the first transfer of some USD 400 million was made in 1996, the Fund has grown rapidly in size. Its assets are currently valued at around USD 400 billion. One third of the portfolio, about USD 130 billion is invested here in North America. The Fund is expected to grow rapidly in coming years, and may double in 5-10 years. The Fund was established as a tool to support prudent management of Norway’s petroleum wealth. One purpose is to shield the non-oil economy from price fluctuations (see Chart 3). The Fund is also a long-term savings instrument. It will help to cope with future financial commitments linked to an ageing population. Accumulation of capital in the Fund reflects the depletion of a non-renewable resource, which is exchanged for financial assets through the Fund’s investments. By setting up the Fund, it became possible to establish a path for production of oil and gas that is independent of the profile for petroleum revenue spending. Furthermore, to effectively shield the non-oil economy, and to make sure that private sector investment decisions could be made independently of the public sector’s saving of petroleum wealth, the Fund is only invested abroad. This also enhances the expected return on government wealth and reduces the risk.
Many of the financial institutions are still being constrained by large nonperforming assets, and despite injection of capital and massive liquidity support, financial intermediation is still not fully functional. On the fiscal front, the continuation of large fiscal deficits and rising public sector debt are increasingly placing a limit on fiscal flexibility while quantitative easing and very low interest rate environment globally are fuelling some asset prices to rise. Given these challenges, it will be a mistake to believe that the world is on the mend. In many ways, the global economic structure and the character and governance of the international financial system will be fundamentally different. First, overall global growth will, for a prolonged period, remain below its past trend, with the growth trajectory in advanced  BIS Review 158/2009  1  economies lower than its average in the decade before the crisis. Several structural weaknesses in the advanced economies will require considerable time and resources to be resolved. While the advanced economies address these issues, the global economy will increasingly be driven by the emerging market economies, particularly China, Brazil, Russia and India. Despite Asia’s large potentials and as a growth leader, it is unlikely that in the immediate term, Asia and other emerging economies would be able to lift global growth in the short-term back to the pre-crisis level. In the short to medium term, the emerging economies will take time to fully compensate for the weak growth in the advanced economies.

Ranee Jayamaha: The financial performance of the Credit Information Bureau in Sri Lanka during 2005 Speech by Dr Ranee Jayamaha, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Annual General Meeting of the Credit Information Bureau, Colombo, 23 June 2006. *  *  *  Members of the Head Table, the Board of Directors, the Shareholders of the CRIB, Chief Executives and Officials of Banks and Financial Institutions, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am pleased to present to you this evening the Chairperson’s report of the CRIB which summarizes the significant growth in business operations and the financial performances of the CRIB during 2005. Sri Lanka’s CRIB is one of the pioneer credit information bureaux in the South Asia region since its establishment in 1990. The year 2006 is a landmark in its history as the CRIB will begin to re-engineer its core business processes with enhancements and upgrades to the technological infrastructure. As indicated in the Annual Report, during 2005, the CRIB has recorded a remarkable growth in its businesses and achieved its primary objective of collecting, collating and dissemination of aggregate credit information for the use of stakeholder institutions. Reporting of credit information to, and complying with the Bureau’s requirements are mandatory and the CRIB has made a conscious effort to educate the member institutions of the reciprocal benefits of providing reliable credit information. Throughout the year, the CRIB has continued follow up work in refreshing and updating the existing credit database.
At the same time, the real exchange rate (RER) has fallen from around 97 in February to a value near its last fifteen years’ average most recently (figure 6). Long-term nominal interest rates have fluctuated less than their external counterparts have. In the emerging economies, the growth outlook is not very different from the one foreseen a few months ago, confirming the slowdown in China. Latin America remains the region suffering the most profound and continuous deterioration, which is particularly intense in Brazil. Inflation remains low in a large part of the world, but not in Latin America where it is still high. Moreover, the prices of most commodities, although with fluctuations, are higher than those included in the March Report. Copper, after trading around $ per pound for a few days, moved closer to $ at the statistical cutoff date (although recently it has approached 2.7), while WTI oil is trading near $ per barrel. This contrasts with the decline in food prices. I should note two important trends that are being observed in the world, implying greater convergence of growth. On one hand, while the US is expected to continue to grow faster than Europe, the gap between the two regions has been narrowing. On the other hand, emerging markets will continue to outgrow developed economies, but this gap is also closing.

Global financial conditions are still on the favorable side from a historical perspective, which in no case means that a sudden turnaround cannot happen. As a matter of fact, the consequences on global financial markets of a negative outcome in Greece or the ever closer rise in US interest rates are still significant risk situations which, despite having been on the horizon for so long, must not be overlooked or forgotten. Chile, as we have said time and again, has been able to confront the changes in external and internal conditions via a significant and quick adjustment. The absence of large imbalances, combined with the proper macroeconomic policy framework, are, in our view, key elements, although not sufficient, to generate the conditions required to resume growth levels that allow us to reach the desired development of our country. In this context, I would like to note that I fully endorse what the Finance Minister said recently, that fiscal stimulus-and I would add monetary stimulus as well-cannot by itself persistently maintain the growth of the economy. On the fiscal front, it is clear that, as stated by the appropriate authority, to honor the commitments on the matter, spending cannot grow eternally at the rates projected for this year. On the monetary front, given the baseline scenario, the convergence of inflation is inconsistent with a bigger impulse than the present one.
Holdings of liquid assets have trebled. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  However, two crucial elements of the capital and liquidity regime are still at the design and agreement stage. The first is an international standard on leverage. Though the risk-weighted capital framework provides a system that it is more sensitive to risk, it is reliant on those risk-weights being correctly calculated and, therefore, vulnerable to so-called model risk. The riskweighted approach will fail if the risk-weights are wrongly calculated, either individually or, collectively. And the evidence of the crisis is that this risk can become more pronounced in boom times when asset prices are rising and the pressure to expand balance sheets with cheap funding is greatest. The result is dangerous concentrations in what appear to be lowrisk assets. It is telling that if a minimum leverage standard been in place prior to the crisis, it would have bound more tightly than risk-weighted measures for a number of banks that met their risk weighted capital ratios but that subsequently failed. The debate about the relative merits of risk weighted capital controls versus un-risk-weighted controls like the leverage ratio has in my view become too hung up on the question of backstops and frontstops – on which constraint should bite first. This is an unhelpful way to look at the issue. Risk-weighted and non-risk- weighted measures protect against different risks. The leverage measure is there to manage model risk, which can be very significant.

The UK, through the Independent Commission on Banking proposals, and the US, through Dodd Frank, are key examples of this. The EU have also proposed a structural reform measure of this nature. I do not want to go into the detail of the reforms, which can take very different approaches. The reforms are, in the general, complementary to the resolution agenda. By seeking to ensure that critical economic functions are insulated from riskier parts of the group, they make it easier for the resolution authority to protect continuity in those services through a resolution scenario. All entities within the group, of course, still need to be resolvable. When working out the details of implementation, we need to make sure they too line up with the grain of the resolution strategy adopted for the firm. For cross-border banks, that will require work to ensure that the application of different structural reform measures in different jurisdictions add up to form a coherent package for the group as a whole. Conclusion As I have noted, the crisis was not only hugely costly, but also complex and long lasting. It revealed wide spread weaknesses, and weaknesses of very different types, in the financial sector and in regulation and supervision. So the reform programme is complex and wide ranging. There are many elements I have not mentioned today. The overall message, however, is that the landscape must and will change very materially. The change is happening.
Timothy F Geithner: Key challenges in risk management Keynote address by Mr Timothy F Geithner, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the RMA/Risk Business KRI’s Global Operational Risk Forum, New York, 13 January 2005. *  *  *  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I want to talk about the mix of forces at work on the broader macroeconomic front and what that may imply for risk and for financial stability. By many measures, the economic landscape looks reasonably good. The qualified optimism that now seems to prevail about the global expansion is reflected in low risk premia, unusually low credit spreads, low and quite stable inflation expectations, and low actual and implied volatility. But the global economy faces a set of pressing macroeconomic policy challenges. How should we think about the risks presented by these broader macroeconomic forces, and their implications for the sustainability of this recent period of stable economic performance, and low volatility and risk premia? The U.S. expansion has proven quite resilient. We enter the new year with what appears to be a pretty solid underlying pace of growth. Core inflation is moderate, and various measures of inflation expectations suggest confidence in the outlook for price stability. Estimates of structural productivity growth remain high, although there has been some moderation recently. The pace of global growth has moderated a bit, but most forecasts anticipate a quite strong and broad based expansion.

This dynamic will test the ability of governments to sustain commitment to an open multilateral trading system, and the manner in which this plays out will have an important impact on future productivity gains. A fourth challenge involves prospective changes in the global exchange rate regime. The international monetary system now incorporates an uncomfortable disparity in the extent to which real effective exchange rates vary across regions. The monetary authorities of the United States and Europe allow considerable variability in their real exchange rates, though they are not indifferent to movements in exchange rates. Japan has somewhat less enthusiasm for flexibility and runs a regime in which it seeks to avoid large swings in the value of their currency. Emerging market economies run a mix of regimes from those that permit significant flexibility to those that run essentially fixed pegs or regimes that seek to contain variations to relatively small degrees around implicit targets for their currencies against the dollar or a basket of the currencies of their major trading partners. The world has lived with this system for some time. But this is not an ideal mix, either for the monetary system as a whole, or for those countries which permit very little variability in their real effective exchange rates, and it’s probably not sustainable over time. It also is not ideal because it limits the extent to which markets work to facilitate adjustment. It creates the risk of larger moves in the major currencies than might otherwise be the case.
The issuer base was expanded from only  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Mainland Chinese banks at the start, to Mainland subsidiaries of Hong Kong banks and China’s Ministry of Finance in 2009, and further to Hong Kong corporations and famous international institutions like McDonald’s and the Asian Development Bank last year. Any issuers, including foreign corporations and multilateral organisations, can now issue RMB bonds in Hong Kong, just as they can issue bonds in any other currencies. Of course, if the proceeds are to be used on the Mainland, the moving of funds into Mainland China will have to meet the requirements there. By the same token, banks can now also offer RMB financing to their clients, including enterprises which conduct direct investments under the pilot scheme for the settlement of ODI in RMB introduced in January this year. As the pool of offshore RMB funds in Hong Kong continues to grow, there will be huge opportunities for financial institutions to take part in RMB financing as well as in the origination, distribution, investment and trading of RMB bonds. The second dimension is RMB trade settlement. The RMB trade settlement pilot scheme was introduced in July 2009. The initial scope of the scheme was rather limited. But in less than a year, the pilot scheme was expanded to cover enterprises in 20 provinces and cities on the Mainland and their trade transactions with any parts of the world can now be settled in RMB.

That is a truly terrible choice and so the key thing is to find a new set of measures that can be deployed to give us a tolerable course. That set of measures is what constitutes a resolution regime. It is not about making things perfect. It is about coping. We can all learn from the US’s special resolution regimes in this respect, including the extensions in scope to bankholding companies and non-bank financial firms affected by the Dodd-Frank Act. But there are things being debated in Europe and in the international community that may even supplement the toolbox that exists already in the United States. One of them is the potential ability for the resolution authority to haircut creditors and partially convert debt into equity in what is otherwise a firm with a viable underlying franchise and so potentially a going concern. This would be an adaptation of Chapter 11 regime in the US rather than the standard special resolution toolkit for banks. This set of issues is, at its very core, a cross-border endeavour. We will not get far on this front without much more intimate and trusting co-operation between home country supervisors and resolution authorities and host country authorities. We should not exaggerate the extent to which this has worked well in the past. Supervisors even admit that behind closed doors.