samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
E-commerce activity has boomed in recent years, especially in the Asian region because according to the Asian Development Bank, Asia’s e-commerce transactions now makes up one quarter of global business in consumer markets. Not surprisingly, the largest proportion and number of these transactions originate from the People’s Republic of China; where the size of the retail e-commerce market has seen a fourfold increase from USD200 billion to USD800 billion in a period of three years between 2013 to 2017 . Here in Malaysia, the trend in e-commerce transactions has been encouraging as well, with an increase of more than 69%, from USD1,856 million in 2016 to over USD3 billion in 2018. All this affirms the shift in the mode of our economy: The future is not so much in brick and mortar – but in bits and bytes. In Malaysia, an estimated 62% of businesses are connected to the Internet. More will migrate to the virtual marketplace, and there is little doubt that digital entrepreneurship will be a key component of economic growth and job creation. Of particular importance in this shift is the role of intermediaries: In a market which is increasingly defined by customisation and speed of service, the role of matching customers to providers has become absolutely critical; the reliance on both parties being on the know-how and expertise of the go-between. And this certainly applies to your role as the main intermediators of insurance.

Agents have always been and will continue to be important agents, including agents of change in the insurance sector as they are uniquely positioned to read the pulse of customers. This change could involve the insurer-agent relationship and the balancing of customers’ interests. The time could be appropriate for general insurance agents to reorganise themselves into an industry 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  association that can effectively mobilise the power of collective action and enable the agents as a cohesive force to better serve customers’ interests. This will also put in place a foundation for the possibility of setting standards on conduct, education and self-regulation of individual agents. Cultivating a solid industry association is neither an easy nor a short-term task but the benefits are immense. The Bank remains optimistic that agents will continue to play a key role in Malaysia’s insurance industry, and will be crucial to take us to the next level. In all this, agents must not deviate from their raison d’etre, i.e. intermediating between the insurer and the customer. Ultimately, we all should recognize that it is the interests of the customers, which is at the heart of it. Jack Ma of Alibaba, aptly said it, “Customers should be number one.” The challenge presented upon you today, is to embrace the Digital Economy and not lose sight of this. On that note, let me once again thank PIAM for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you today and I wish you a productive convention ahead.
BIS Review 153/2008  3  In Sweden, as in most other countries, the principle for all securities trading (shares, interestbearing papers and derivatives) settled in VPC, is Delivery versus Payment (DvP). This eliminates credit risk. The remaining counterparty risk is known as replacement cost risk – the risk of having to pay more for a transaction that replaces a failed trade. This risk is normally just a fraction of the credit risk but can be sizeable when prices are volatile. In Sweden, transactions in shares and interest-bearing securities are normally settled within three days after the trade. The replacement cost risk for such business largely depends on the state of the market. When market rates are notably volatile, failure to deliver can result in substantial replacement costs. The introduction of a central counterparty service next year will make it possible to manage the counterparty risks in share trading on the Swedish market. Moreover, it is now possible to trade Swedish shares on the new European trading facilities that are linked to central counterparty clearance. This points to a future reduction of the counterparty risks in Swedish share transactions. The counterparty risks in the derivatives market are considerably larger and harder to manage than they are in the spot market. This is because the duration of risk exposures is longer in the derivatives market, often as much as several months. The Swedish derivatives market already provides the possibility of managing counterparty risks by means of a central counterparty.

We know that linking compensation to productivity is efficient, but the devil is in the details. Second, the regulation-making process, as very well discussed in Dr. Reddy’s lecture, was also distorted by comprehensive capture by the financial industry. As he explains, this was not only capture of the regulators, but also capture of public policy relating to the financial system. With a little bit of moral hazard, which is exacerbated by regulatory and policy capture, the result was the creation of a very vulnerable financial system. Finally, there was indifference in policy circles. None of us saw it coming, at least not with the intensity with which it arrived, which still persists. Indeed, it was difficult for those of us from emerging markets to think that this could happen in the advanced world. Whenever we had raised a concern we had been told that “these are developed countries,” as an argument that “this time is different”. There were, of course, calls for prudence, in particular from this institution, but we never thought that the consequences would be so dramatic. Markets should provide enough discipline to balance risk and return, but that was not exactly the case. The market functioned poorly. In addition, we had a sense of security given the “decoupling” that took place in the 2000s, in part due to good macroeconomic management, and which became a recoupling by mid-2008 (Dooley and Hutchison, 2009; Korinek et al., 2010).
Encik Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya: The benefits of online banking services and Inter-Bank GIRO (IBG) in Malaysia Welcoming remarks by Mr Encik Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the “Experience IBG” Roadshow, Kuantan, 2 December 2013. *  *  *  It is my great pleasure, ladies and gentlemen to meet and welcome all of you to the “Experience IBG” roadshow in Kuantan this morning This roadshow is jointly organised by Bank Negara Malaysia, the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM), the Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM) and the banking institutions to create awareness amongst the small businesses on online banking services, focusing specifically on Interbank GIRO or IBG, which is a payment system that allows a person to conduct transfer of funds between banks. The first roadshow began in Seberang Prai on 22 October 2013, and it will end in Kuching on 5 March 2014, after covering 12 major towns in the country. The first four roadshows have attracted more than 1,500 (1,590) participants, who are mainly the SMEs and micro enterprises and more than 1,000 (1,056) or 66% of the participants have signed-up for the online banking services such as Internet banking and mobile banking. This demonstrated that the explanation and promotional efforts undertaken by the banks during the roadshow’s exhibition has helped participants to understand more about the benefits of using online banking in comparison to cheques.

Based on the “Open Day” events held in 8 towns in 4 states for the past 2 months, more than 900 (911) banks’ customers have signed up to use the online banking services. For information of all participants, to date, cheques are still widely used in our country. Based on the last 3 years data, an average of 205 million cheques amounting to about RM2 trillion are issued on an annual basis. In terms of the number of cheques over the country’s population, or cheques per capita, it is at 7.1. This figure is much higher than 3.9 in advanced countries such as Norway, Finland and Australia. It is also worth noting that 92% (or 18.4 million) of the total adult population in Malaysia have banking accounts and of these, about 74% (13.7 million) of bank account holders have Internet banking accounts. However, although 74% of the bank account holders have Internet banking access, only 43% (5.9 million) of the Internet banking subscribers are active users in conducting financial transactions. In this regard, we have not reached a stage where the masses are familiar or have gained sufficient trust in using Internet banking to conduct their financial transactions. It is through educational programs such as this roadshow event that we hope the businesses will take the opportunity to learn more about the security safeguards and safe practices to gain sufficient confidence to adopt online banking and conduct e-payments.
Caleb M Fundanga: The Financial Sector Development Plan Welcome remarks by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP) National Financial Education Strategy Consultative Workshop, Lusaka, 20 October 2010. *  *  *  The Guest of Honour, Honourable Situmbeko Musokotwane, Minister of Finance and National Planning M.P. ; The FSDP Steering Committee Chairman & Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Likolo Ndalamei; Distinguished Excellencies; Co-operating partners; Chief Executive Officers and Representatives from Banks and Non-bank Financial Institutions; FSDP Working Group Chairpersons and Vice Chairpersons; Distinguished Invited Guests; Members of the Press; Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Bank of Zambia, to welcome you all to the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP) National Financial Education Stakeholders’ Consultative Workshop. Honourable Minister, this very important workshop comes at the time when the FSDP is gearing up to implement many of its activities under phase II which the Government approved earlier this year. As you are aware, one of the activities identified under the FSDP II is the development of a national financial education strategy for Zambia. Let me hasten to say, financial education needs in Zambia are many and varied. They stem from inadequate understanding, by a good proportion of the population, of basic financial terms and concepts on the one hand, and a lack of knowledge of financial products and services that are increasingly available, on the other.

The Bank of Zambia and the Government are, therefore, most grateful to our cooperating partners for helping us build capacity in our financial sector. Honourable Minister, it is also our view that the FSDP provides a unique opportunity through its structures, operating on the principle of private-public partnership, to take responsibility for overseeing the development of the financial education strategy for Zambia. One of the key issues that this partnership should help address is achieving consensus on resource requirements for implementing financial education programmes and agreeing suitable funding models that can generate a stream of resources to support sustained provision of financial education over the long-term. Ladies and Gentlemen, It is now my pleasure to call upon the Guest of Honour, to give us his key note address and to officially open this workshop. Honourable Minister Sir. 2  BIS Review 139/2010
In many ways, the business models of banks and non-bank financial institutions – especially large securities firms – have converged, with banks playing a greater agency role in the credit process, and securities firms doing more of the financing. BIS Review 39/2008  3  It is important to understand that investment banks now perform many of the economic functions traditionally associated with commercial banks, and they are also vulnerable to a sudden loss of liquidity. Unlike commercial banks, which rely significantly on deposits for funding, investment banks operate according to a business model in which they fund large portions of their balance sheets on a secured, short-term basis in what is known as the repo market. Because the assurance of access to short-term secured funding on a daily basis is such a critical component of business functioning for these entities, they are vulnerable to the possibility of a sudden pullback in short-term lending, or a reduction in the willingness of investors to lend against certain classes of securities. As we have seen throughout the past nine months, these changes in the relative roles of traditional commercial banks and investment banks have changed the nature of financial stability. In the United States, the regulatory framework and most of the tools that were created to prevent and manage financial crises were developed in a bank-dominated era, and we have had to adapt those tools to deal with current market realities.

Borrowers needed to sell assets to meet the calls; some highly leveraged firms were unable to meet their obligations and their counterparties responded by liquidating the collateral they held. This put downward pressure on asset prices and increased price volatility. Dealers raised margins further to compensate for heightened volatility and reduced liquidity. This, in turn, put more pressure on other leveraged investors. A self-reinforcing downward spiral of higher haircuts forced sales, lower prices, higher volatility and still lower prices. This dynamic poses a number of risks to the functioning of the financial system. It reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy, as the widening in spreads and risk premia worked to offset part of the reduction in the fed funds rate. Contagion spreads, transmitting waves of distress to other markets, from subprime to prime mortgages and even to agency mortgagebacked securities, to commercial mortgage-backed securities and to corporate bonds and loans. In the current situation, effects were felt in the municipal and student loan markets. The most important risk is systemic: if this dynamic continues unabated, the result would be a greater probability of widespread insolvencies, severe and protracted damage to the financial system and, ultimately, to the economy as a whole. This is not theoretical risk, and it is not something that the market can solve on its own. It carries the risk of significant damage to economic activity.
In my view, also shared with many others’, monetary policy should be poised, pre-emptive and perceptive taking into account the central scenario, let me say more concretely what this means. First, on poise. Last year was the year of transition as the Thai economy moved out of crisis toward recovery. This year is the year of regaining poise as the balance of risks shift to inflation amid a selfsustaining recovery. A self-sustaining recovery means robust and broad-based growth. Indeed, we have seen expansion across consumption, investment, and exports. Economic performance beat expectations throughout last year. For 2011, we project 3–5 percent growth as the economy returns to its long-term average growth. The surge in oil and commodity prices is projected not to weigh on the growth prospects of the Thai economy, due to falling oil intensity and strong and broad-based growth. The oil price spike this time round is also not as severe as previous episodes. On the recent and unfortunate Japan crisis, we believe it will have a limited impact on the Thai economy. As a share of Thai exports, the Japanese market accounts for only about 10 percent. But of course, there is a risk of a protracted nuclear crisis dampening economic activity with adverse implications for global growth. In such an economy with strong growth prospects, there is less need for policy to accommodate growth going forward but more need to be concerned about inflation.

The technology itself does not yet meet the requirements expected of the RTGS systems in terms of scalability, data security and reliability. Modern RTGS systems such as SIC are already demonstrably efficient and crisis-resilient. In this area, a payment system not only has to prove its efficiency; the reliability of the RTGS systems is also absolutely crucial for the stability of the financial system. New technologies therefore have to meet very high standards in this respect. However, it is quite possible that DLT may take hold in other areas. If DLT were to become established in the securities business, for example, these systems would be linked to the reliable foundation in some manner or other. It is hard to envisage DLT-based system environments developing in isolation. So the next question is what form the coexistence of new DLT solutions and conventional RTGS systems might take. There are different scenarios. One possibility would be a simple technical interface between the DLT system and the existing RTGS system, as illustrated on the slide 6. Payment instructions would be exchanged via this interface, in much the same way as the current solution between SECOM and SIC. However, direct delivery-versuspayment settlement would require certain adjustments, for example to the opening times and participant structure of both systems. A second and more far-reaching possibility would be to integrate the cash leg into the DLTbased infrastructure.
The current profit distribution approach is therefore not – as has often been criticised – overly cautious. The loss in the first half of the year underlines that a larger balance sheet is accompanied by larger fluctuations in absolute terms in the annual result, and that substantial profits can be followed by substantial losses. This clearly demonstrates why the government must not make its financing dependent on SNB profits. Which brings me to the problems associated with the SNB directly financing government tasks. The direct financing of government tasks by the SNB creates a situation whereby the fulfilment of these tasks becomes directly dependent on monetary policy. This is because our monetary policy may influence our annual result, and thus also the distribution. For example, tightening our monetary policy can lead to an appreciation of the Swiss franc, which lowers the return on our foreign currency investments after conversion into Swiss francs. Thus by directly linking certain government tasks to the SNB’s distributions, monetary policy decisions take on a political dimension. Political pressure on the conduct of monetary policy will inevitably increase, thereby endangering the SNB’s independence. Furthermore, the direct financing of government tasks blurs the clear focus of monetary policy on price stability. The direct link between government tasks and the SNB’s earnings can lead to unnecessary conflicts of interest in monetary policy decisions. This in turn can give rise to doubts as to whether the SNB is prepared at all times to take the measures necessary to ensure price stability.

Speech  23 September 2022, 6.00 pm  Safeguarding the principles of regulatory policy Speech at the University of Lucerne  Thomas J. Jordan Chairman of the Governing Board * Swiss National Bank Lucerne, 23 September 2022 © Swiss National Bank (speech given in German)  *  The speaker would like to thank Christoph Hirter and Tanja Zehnder for their support in preparing this speech. He also thanks Claudia Aebersold, Petra Gerlach, Carlos Lenz, Alexander Perruchoud and the SNB Language Services. Page 1/5  Ladies and gentlemen Today’s event focuses on the question ‘Is monetary policy still regulatory policy today?’. I congratulate the University of Lucerne on choosing this important topic. Discussions surrounding regulatory policy have faded somewhat into the background of late. For the Swiss National Bank, however, the principles of regulatory policy – in particular those concerning monetary policy – remain of great significance. I am pleased to give you our view on this topic. In my remarks, I will therefore pay special attention to Switzerland and the SNB. First, I will look at why, for the SNB, the two regulatory principles of a clear focus on ensuring price stability and independence from politics are closely related. I will then show why these principles are contradicted by a number of recently launched political initiatives. To conclude, I would like to explain the SNB’s current monetary policy.
Financial markets have been a useful ally in this fight by rapidly anticipating, as early as 2022Q1, the policy normalisation and tightening path. Page 2 sur 14  Market rates (here the 10y OIS rate on the LHS panel) had already risen significantly before the ECB began raising rates in July 2022, reflecting the adjustment announced in December 2021 through the discontinuation of PEPP net asset purchases. The 2 year OIS rate, a good measure of the expected stance of policy, also increased from early 2022. It is now levelling off around 3%. The proxy rate translates broad financial conditions into a hypothetical equivalent short-term rate. It conveys a similar message: the removal of financial accommodation had already started well before the lift-off of the DFR in July 2022, and at a very rapid pace, with the proxy rate gaining 5 % over the last year (from -3% to 2%). Page 3 sur 14  These increases in market rates and the associated tightening of financial conditions are still being transmitted to broader credit conditions through the banking channel. Bank funding costs, including deposits from households and NFCs, as well as wholesale funding costs and securities – other than shares – are increasing. It is true that the pass-through of rate hikes to the remuneration of households’ sight deposit remains limited, but the transmission to the remuneration of term deposits and deposits redeemable at notice is much stronger, although incomplete.

When making decisions about monetary policy in March, we were considering the possibility of continuing to reduce the key rate in the second quarter, if the economic situation develops in accordance with our forecasts. In March inflation went down to 4.3%, and according to assessments on 17 April inflation has already fallen year-on-year to 4.1%, which is very close to target. The rate of inflation going down more quickly gives us room to reduce the key rate as early as April. I would even suggest that at the next Board of Directors’ meeting, set to take place in a week, there may be discussion about lowering the rate from between 25 to 50 basis points. In general, when carrying out monetary policy, we will be sticking to a careful and considered approach, taking into account risks and uncertainties, including movement in the behaviour of oil prices, and we will be keeping monetary policy moderately tight in order to keep the rate of inflation at around 4%, and to foster the reduction in inflation expectations. The strategy of fiscal consolidation elected by the Ministry of Finance, along with the planned reduction in the budget deficit, will enable stabilisation of state finances. From the point of view of monetary policy, for us it is important that the elected strategy limits inflation risks arising from fiscal policy. Fiscal policy impacts on monetary policy and vice versa, therefore it is important for us to have a regimen of ongoing consultation on this issue.