samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
A number of banks see the logic in this and support our proposals. Others remain less enthusiastic. But we are consulting the industry further on this and I hope that something that is acceptable to all can be arrived at. 11. Next is the issue of the review of the Code of Banking Practice, in relation to which it is suggested in David’s letter that some people are unhappy about the stance taken by the HKMA. On this, I am afraid, I have rather less sympathy than on other issues with those who raise concerns. I do not believe that any of the changes promoted in the Working Group, such as in relation to credit cards and also to fees and charges, are unreasonable. Indeed, most banks seem to have accepted the rationale for changes such as the $ card loss limit, which brings Hong Kong into line with international practice. I believe that the banks must appreciate that issues relating to terms and conditions and other aspects of customer service are a legitimate matter of public interest and concern. In the past, it is true, the HKMA has not been as closely involved in consumer matters. This, however, is something that is changing, not because we particularly desire it but because it seems to be what the public expect. We plan, therefore, to review our involvement in this area so as to determine exactly what our role should be. 2  BIS Review 3/2001  12.

Second, the uncertainty regarding future consumer behaviour remains. During the quarantine and long self-isolation period, a lot of people abandoned some services, formed new consumption preferences, and changed their mode of life. We do not know whether they will become steady and how they will be influencing price trends. Third, after the boundaries are reopened, it is natural to expect that the demand will shift towards outbound tourism services. As labour migrant flows and logistics chains restore, this will become  a disinflationary factor. Finally, as the restrictions are eased, companies will be able to reduce their costs for the sanitation of their premises and the anti-pandemic protection of their staff and customers, which will ease pressures on businesses’ costs. In conclusion, I would like to comment on monetary policy prospects. The accommodative monetary policy and the Government’s package of anti-crisis measures have been promoting economic revival after the acute phase of the crisis. According to our estimates, we consider that the potential for monetary policy easing has been exhausted. Its further easing could additionally increase proinflationary risks. Nonetheless, monetary policy will remain accommodative on average throughout 2021, supporting the recovery of the Russian economy. The baseline scenario provides for a gradual return to neutral monetary policy. We will assess the timeline and pace for this return taking into account our goal to maintain inflation at our target. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
Even when financial contracts deal with the possibility that a LIBOR quote might not be available, they seem to have been drafted assuming that the gap is temporary, not permanent. In a permanent cessation of LIBOR, the fallback solutions in existing contracts become impractical or materially change the economics. That’s a situation that invites litigation, and in the case of LIBOR that litigation would be on a massive scale. So while this prospect might not be unwelcome to certain members of the litigation bar, this is not good news for those interested in maintaining financial stability. For example, many contracts state that if a calculation agent cannot find a LIBOR quote for a given day on the usual Reuters screen, it will call three large London banks and ask them what their borrowing rate is for that day—basically try to privately replicate LIBOR. Imagine if every calculation agent for every transaction tried to do this every time they had to set LIBOR. There would be chaos, especially when those London banks had already decided to get out of the LIBOR-estimating business. Why would they even respond? For some types of transactions—floating-rate notes, for example—there is a further fallback: to fix the interest rate at whatever the last LIBOR quote was. This is not a very satisfactory solution to either the issuers or the borrowers who thought they had an instrument that protected them against interest rate risk. Other transactions like syndicated loans may revert to prime rate loans —again, not what borrowers may want.

I want to pause here to acknowledge that, as an overnight rate, SOFR has been the subject of criticism for sometimes being volatile from day to day, especially near quarter- and year-end. I think such criticism is misplaced. Most users of SOFR don’t use a single day’s rate to determine their payments; they use average rates, which are not much affected by daily volatility. Parallel work has been going on in other jurisdictions whose currencies are used in major benchmarks. Working groups for sterling, euro, Swiss franc and yen IBORs11 have all endorsed overnight rates as their preferred alternatives to those rates.12 Three of the alternative rates are (or will be) administered directly by central banks, reflecting the recognition that crucial interest rate benchmarks are a public good, and their integrity and sustainability are key to financial stability. I’ll note that, at the outset of these reform efforts, the idea was not to completely replace LIBOR. LIBOR was being reformed to address its weaknesses as far as possible in the expectation that it could continue to be used. Efforts to “fix” LIBOR proceeded alongside the program to identify better alternatives. The idea was that if there were a more attractive alternative, firms would gradually move away from LIBOR of their own accord, with a minimum of disruption, and that LIBOR then would be seldom, if ever, used. LIBOR could still be inherently unstable despite the 2/8  BIS central bankers' speeches  reform efforts.
More recently, petroleum revenue spending over the fiscal budget has been less than 3 percent of the value of the fund. This has happened in a situation where the economic cycle has turned up at the same time as the value of the fund has increased rapidly. Fiscal restraint has proved to be a wise policy. Together, the oil fund and the fiscal rule have shown themselves to constitute a robust framework. This framework enjoys cross-party support. After the fiscal rule was introduced in 2001, all succeeding governments have based their policy on this guideline The advantages of this framework are many. First, it allows us to separate spending from income. When we smooth petroleum revenue spending over time, we reduce the risk of crowding out private businesses. At the same time, we protect public budgets from substantial fluctuations in revenues. Second, the considerable savings amassed in recent years mean that future generations will also benefit from petroleum revenues. Norway’s petroleum wealth does not only belong to those living today. We try to be good stewards, like the farmer who cares for the soil and passes it on to succeeding generations so they too can harvest from it. In the case of Norway, we pass our natural resource wealth on to our descendants in the form of financial assets. Chart: The GPFG – Governance model Before continuing, let me say some words about the fund’s governance structure and the interaction between the Norwegian parliament, the Ministry of Finance and Norges Bank.

The progress in the ICT is also one of the main factors explaining why the American economy has developed at a far faster rate than the economy of the euro area in the past ten years. The research results available 3 show that labour efficiency in retail and wholesale trade in the United States has grown many times faster than in Europe, inter alia due to the use of the ICT in those sectors. The American Wal-Mart, the biggest global supermarket network, has implemented the new radiofrequency identification technology (RFID) for the purpose of further enhancement of the network performance and reduction in the logistics-related costs. So will have to do most of Wal-Mart’s suppliers. The above examples demonstrate the way that the progress in the e–economy facilitates global optimization of the manufacturing process, this contributing to a rapid growth in efficiency, improved quality, and reduced prices, and thus offering far-reaching benefits to consumers. It has turned out that although Poland is at the bitter end when it comes to readiness to implement the e-economy, the position of the Polish economy is high in most of the rankings concerning the investment or offshoring 4 attractiveness, whereas our chief advantages include a favourable location, a large market, and well-qualified and relatively cheap workforce. Therefore, owing to the process of globalization of manufacturing and services, Poland may stand a chance of rapid growth, provided that our chief shortcomings, including the poor advancement in e-economy and e-administration, are remedied.
When the latter refused his request for ships in which to explore westward, Columbus turned to the duke of MedinaSedonia, who also refused, then to the count of Medina-Celi, who did likewise, and finally to the king and queen of Spain, who denied Columbus’ first request  1  Niall Ferguson, “Civilisation: The West and the Rest”, Allen Lane, 2011; Ian Morris, “Why the West Rules – for Now”, Farrar, 2010. 2  Jared Diamond, “Guns, Germs and Steel”, Norton, 1997. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  but eventually granted his renewed appeal. Had Europe been united under one of the first three rules, its colonisation of the Americas might have been stillborn.” The spirit of competition and the decentralised decision-making mechanism that characterised Europe in past centuries explain, for example, why European navigators strove to discover new routes; how the foundations of commercial dominance were laid; and how scientific discoveries, which often originated abroad, were turned into innovations and new production processes. Again, using Diamond’s words: “Once Spain had launched the European colonisation of America, other European states saw the wealth flowing to Spain, and six more joined in colonizing America.

As a representative of a country that has had floating exchange rates for over thirty years now, I can only underscore the importance of an exchange rate regime that reflects the realities of the market. During the past three decades, the Swiss franc has been an essential factor in the development of the Swiss economy. However, it was never a reason for our exporters to sit back and relax. On the contrary, the franc put pressure on them to become more efficient and to specialise in those product areas in which we have a real competitive edge. Consumers also profited from the strong Swiss franc in that the prices for imported goods have fallen significantly. A currency that is accurately priced enables the economy to benefit from improvements in its terms of trade triggered by productivity increases. If a country’s currency is undervalued, products are sold on the market at give-away prices, and productive resources are inefficiently allocated. The functioning of a currency system, therefore, plays a pivotal role in the development of a country’s prosperity, and monetary reform, as China is currently expected to tackle, is a very delicate undertaking. Unless new monetary rules and mechanisms can immediately convince the market of the appropriateness of the new regime, a risk of speculative pressure will emerge. Switzerland has experience in this regard as well. We ultimately opted for flexible exchange rates, i.e. a system in which the Swiss franc’s value is continuously in line with market forces.
Andrew Bailey: The UK bank resolution regime Speech by Mr Andrew Bailey, Executive Director for Banking Services and Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, at The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) Financial Services Faculty breakfast, London, 26 November 2009. I am grateful to Peter Brierley, Victoria Cleland, Iain De Weymarn, Geoff Davies, Tony Foster, Andrew Hauser, Orla May and Paul Tucker for their comments and assistance. *  *  *  The UK bank resolution regime Thank you for inviting me to speak this morning. One of the characteristics of bank resolutions, to which I will return later, is that they have to be done quickly to a fixed deadline and involve working through the night. They also require extensive involvement by accountants and lawyers, so, I have had some experience with spending nights and early mornings with accountants. The only, but important difference, is that I don’t get to choose when to spend my early mornings on resolutions, whereas you did choose to listen to me early this morning, for which I am very grateful. Some history The 2009 Banking Act, passed in February, created the new bank resolution regime in the UK. In its first nine months it has been used once, at the end of March for the Dunfermline Building Society.

In my view, if we were faced with the same problem today now that we have a special resolution regime for banks, there is little doubt that Northern Rock could have failed in an orderly way under the resolution regime. But this wasn’t possible in September 2007. And given the number and size of depositors, Northern Rock could not be allowed to fail in a way that would have jeopardised the funds of those depositors. It was therefore a stark illustration of the need for a resolution regime. In February last year emergency legislation was introduced in the form of the Banking Special Provisions Act, or BSPA, which created a temporary resolution regime, temporary insofar as the BSPA had a one year sunset clause. The BSPA, which facilitated taking Northern Rock into temporary public ownership, also contained broad powers for the Treasury, as the lead authority in that regime, to protect financial stability and the public interest by statutory transfers of the property of UK banks. The Treasury was also able to override or modify contractual property rights in order to give itself more room for manoeuvre. Creating this regime turned out to have been prescient, because in September of last year it was used to resolve Bradford and Bingley by transferring part of its business, namely Bradford and Bingley’s deposit taking activities, to Santander, leaving the rest in public ownership. The BSPA therefore enabled a new home to be found for the deposits over the course of a weekend.
To drive the migration to e-payments during the transition period, the Instant Transfer fee of 50 sen would be waived for transactions up to RM5,000 per transaction made by individuals and SMEs effective 1 July 2018. The e-Payment Incentive Fund (ePIF) will be enlarged with an additional contribution of RM198 million from financial institutions. The funds will be used to assist account holders to migrate efficiently to e-payments. Individuals and businesses are advised to take advantage of these incentives and engage their respective financial institutions. In line with this year’s theme of ‘Mobile Payment: The Next Wave’, we have invited a total of 18 exhibitors comprising both banks and non-banks to showcase their new and innovative payment solutions. Do take the opportunity to visit the booths to gain further insights on how the solutions would benefit your business and cater to your payment needs. With this, I wish you a productive forum ahead. Thank you. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches

In the second half of last year, it was already growing at an annualized rate of 6 percent. Indeed, we were forecasting that 2010 growth would be around 5 percent as early as last September. The figures up to February 27 – as shown in a box in the Report –, indicated that the midpoint of the growth range could be closer to 6 percent than to 5 percent. Compared with our trading partners or with the average growth forecast for Latin America, this figure is around two percentage points greater. Expansionary monetary policy has played a key role in our economy’s strong performance. Nonetheless, our country was then hit by another shock. On February 27 we suffered one of the worst natural disasters in history that took a tragic toll on our country, causing loss of life, numerous injuries, forced displacement of large numbers of people, and huge material damages. Although the prospects of our country’s progress have not been compromised, this  BIS Review 61/2010  1  new scenario poses important challenges in every aspect of national life, including the conduct of monetary policy. The immediate reaction of an economy to a natural disaster is highly uncertain. Historical evidence tells us little because such events are, luckily, very rare. Therefore, the evaluation of data released since the disaster must be done with extreme caution. In fact, output data for March and April will reveal very poor performance. The reaction of the economy to a natural catastrophe in the medium term is somewhat clearer.
The latest biannual survey conducted by Bpifrance shows that demand remains the main obstacle to investment for French small business ownersiv. This diagnosis is confirmed at the macro level by one of our staff’s recent working papers, which investigated a panel of 22 advanced economies: expected demand appears as the main determinant of the slowdown in business investment (negative contribution of more than 80%).v The second key economic lever of investment is confidence, or to put it another way, the level of uncertainty (17%).vi If the environment is blurred, complex or unstable – especially as regards rules and norms –, businesses opt for a “wait-and-see” behaviour and postpone their investment decisions. So, the simplification and stabilisation of rules is an often underestimated albeit key trigger of business investment. Economic levers are of the essence, but financial ones also play a role. Currently, the cost of debt financing is low in the euro area, there is no evidence of credit rationing, and yet business investment is not completely responding. So what’s wrong? There are two intertwined features that explain this puzzle. First, as Europe’s economy is “at the technological frontier”, businesses need to innovate more, which means they need to diversify their sources of financing: to be able to take more risks, they need less internal or debt financing and more equity financing. Yet, (slide 8) and this is the second key feature of today’s environment, the cost of equity (CoE) has remained high, despite the sharp fall in interest rates over the last two decades.

Ardian Fullani: South East Europe – pre-requisites for reform Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the high-level seminar “South East Europe: pre-requisites for reform”, hosted by the Bank of Albania in collaboration with the University of Oxford, Tirana, 14 June 2012. *  *  *  Dear Mr. Minister, Dear Governors, Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank you all for your participation and interest in sharing opinions on an extremely important issue to all of us: economic reforms and policies the countries of the region need to undertake against a background of an unclear situation in Europe, our main trading partner. I would like to thank in particular the representatives of the University of Oxford and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, who have worked closely with the Bank of Albania in hosting this Conference. This activity today is a follow-up of our joint study work with the University of Oxford dedicated to the competitiveness of the Albanian economy in a regional and global context, attraction of foreign investment and macro-financial stability of our economy. Dear guests, The year 2011 and the first part of the current year evidenced that euro area crisis has plunged into its most acute phase. Right at the centre of this crisis, the sovereign debt risk, the curtailed ability of the financial system to absorb this risk and the continuous economic activity slowdown are spinning in a vicious circle.
The Fair and Effective Markets Review – which I am leading along with my cochairs, Martin Wheatley from the Financial Conduct Authority and Charles Roxburgh from the Treasury – was set up to restore confidence in the operation of these markets. We don’t want to do this alone. That is why we have launched a consultation document today soliciting the views of anyone with an interest in FICC markets. The consultation is open for three months, and we will issue our final recommendations in June. In the meantime we want to work closely with: •  Market participants – who have the primary responsibility for putting things right. We have enlisted the help of a panel of senior market practitioners to help launch and take forward the Review’s final recommendations. •  International policymakers and regulators – because these markets are global in scope, although a significant share of these markets is based in London. •  The academic community – with which we are actively consulting – including the audience here tonight. •  The general public - including companies and households, for whom, I will argue, these markets matter most of all. In the rest of my speech I would like first to dismiss any notions you may have that Fixed Income, Currency and Commodity markets don’t affect your lives. Then I’ll talk about what went wrong in these markets and why, including a discussion of some of the markets’ key characteristics.

Since then, over 35 programmes covering an additional 17 job families have been accredited. In the coming months, the accredited providers will roll out over 100 programmes covering 38 job families, including Compliance, Anti-money Laundering, Risk Management, Trade Finance, Product Control, Deal Processing & Settlement, Investment Advisory, Private  BIS Review 81/2008  1  Equity and General Insurance Underwriting. We now have 93 certified competency-based assessors, who can provide the assessment of candidates. On the demand side, 470 individuals have undergone the FICS accredited programmes. A total of 49 financial institutions have benefited from the FICS accredited training or assessment programmes. Apart from sending staff or programmes run by the lead providers, I am pleased that several financial institutions have adopted FICS for their in-house programmes. I encourage more financial institutions to make use of the FICS framework and the grants available to step up their training. Last year, IBF introduced an additional set of standards on life insurance–relationship management. IBF will continue to review and expand the scope of the standards when new needs are identified. Please let us have your suggestions. Another important milestone was also reached when we appointed the pioneer batch of 11 Financial Industry Certified Professionals (FICPs) in October 2007. Our FICPs are professionals who exhibit high standards. I am delighted that so many of our top professionals have stepped forward for this accreditation. You will serve as role models for our young.