samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
First, the 120 banks considered to be significant, 15 of which are Spanish (although their number will drop to 14 when the acquisition of Catalunya Banc by BBVA is completed). They will be directly supervised by the ECB through so-called Joint Supervisory Teams made up of staff from the ECB and the national supervisors. Second, the more than 3,000 less significant banks will continue to be the direct responsibility of national authorities, although the ECB will indirectly monitor their situation and the supervisory actions to which they are subject. As a prior step to the creation of the SSM, a comprehensive assessment of the euro area’s significant banks was conducted and the results were made public on 26 October. This exercise consisted of two parts: an asset quality review and a stress test. The assessment of asset quality involved an in-depth review of bank balance sheets as at end-2013. It was carried out with the assistance of the top audit firms. The stress tests assessed the capacity of banks, in a three-year period from 2014 to 2016, to absorb losses under two hypothetical macroeconomic scenarios: a baseline, more likely one; and an adverse one, less likely but not impossible. This second phase of the exercise was basically carried out by the banks themselves. Both phases were subject to strict quality assurance in which the national supervisory authorities, in our case the Banco de España, played a key role.

The simple truth is, unless you are on a train, you don’t have the chance to move forward and will never come closer to your destination: Success. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  5. If you feel that I should not be depicting a rather scary train journey on this auspicious and joyful occasion, then please forgive me and let me try another scenario for you to think about, again using my train journey story. 6. Suppose that you have been bumped off the train once or twice and have found your way back onto the next trains to carry on with the journey. You will gradually realise that there are certain rules and disciplines on the train that determine who get the good seats, who can be upgraded from the economy cabin to the business class and then the first class cabin. There are also rules and booking system that govern who can enjoy a good meal at the dining car and when. So you will come to realise that the train is not a wild jungle filled with animals, or people, trying to eat each other alive. You will also discover that there are some passengers who have got upgraded to the business or first class cabin not just because they are muscular or clever. They are ahead of most other passengers because they possess certain qualities that we in modern time called leadership.
Indeed, at last year’s presentation of the Annual Report to the Council, I referred to budgetary policy as one of the main underpinnings of the Spanish economy in this phase of the cycle and I pointed out that the favourable fiscal position would allow the automatic stabilisers to operate to their full extent without jeopardising budgetary stability. One year on, the fiscal results for 2008 and the projections available – which point to a budget deficit approaching 10% of GDP in 2010 and to a public debt ratio that might exceed the threshold of 60% of GDP – augur a drastic change in outlook, with the possibilities of fiscal policy boosting spending having been exhausted. Fiscal measures that call into question the commitment to budgetary stability in the medium term should be categorically avoided, since that would adversely affect the cost of raising funds and confidence in the Spanish economy, and it could also generate expectations of future tax rises that might ultimately sterilise the expansionary effects of the measures adopted. Public-sector debt must be prevented from becoming an obstacle once the Spanish economy is better placed to grow. Accordingly, priority must be given to promptly defining a credible strategy to reduce the deficit to levels compatible with budgetary stability, once the exceptional circumstances that led to the rise in the deficit have disappeared. The demand-side expansionary fiscal and monetary impulses are proving very powerful and are contributing to the alleviation of the contractionary forces at play.

In 1982, after a large devaluation of the Swedish krona, it was declared that there would be no more devaluations. The same thing hap-pened in Norway in 1986, when the Norwegian krone was devalued for the tenth time in a decade. Interest-rate setting once again became the genuine responsibility of Norges Bank. We have also shared similar problems regarding the lending spree that started in the mid-1980s, and ended in a systematic banking crisis and in the worst re-cession since the 1930s. Both countries experienced solid economic growth and very rapid credit and asset price growth, followed by a cyclical downturn and heavy loan losses that exhausted the capital of many banks that had over-ex-tended themselves. The strong credit growth was partly due to the earlier de-regulation. Borrowing was also encouraged by the generous tax deductions for interest payments. While the crisis was certainly aggravated by external shocks, such as the currency crisis in Europe in the early 1990s, it was mostly homemade through a bad policy mix and bad timing of reforms. However, prompt and broad-based government intervention helped the banking sector to recover relatively quickly. The fiscal costs of solving the banking crisis were also comparatively low. Nevertheless, the negative impact on the real economy was severe, particularly in Sweden, and unemployment soared. Sweden had to pay a high price for its defence of the krona in the early 1990s, and a return to a fixed exchange rate regime was not a realistic option at the time. Instead, a new monetary framework took form.
The second response to the crisis drives us to equip ourselves with new tools that mitigate the effects of future crises, because experience tells us that, even assuming that all the preventive measures conceivable today are adopted, it will never be possible to do away once and for all with economic crises. The third response to a crisis does not involve preventing or adopting tools to manage future crises, but looking for the right way to manage the current crisis from which, need I remind you, we have not yet emerged. I make this distinction between the three types of response that an economic crisis always elicits so that my following remarks may be better understood. Firstly, I think that most of the huge efforts deployed to date at the global and European level in response to the crisis have focused on avoiding or mitigating future crises. Yet much less time and imagination has been used in designing and agreeing on measures to emerge from where we are. I am certain that we are now much better prepared to prevent the recurrence of a crisis such as the present one, but the problem is that we still do not know how to exit from it.

The experience of the IMF is most illustrative as regards the importance of demanding strict conditionality criteria so that aid programmes may be successful. Another fairly common mistake is to believe that crisis-management solutions should always and everywhere be the same. Before applying uniform measures, it should be borne in mind that countries may differ in respect of their problems, their legislation and their institutional structure. Likewise, learning from the past may prove of limited use when it comes to teaching us how to act in the face of a crisis such as the present one. As I have illustrated when talking about the Spanish case, the current crises may generate a very different pathology from those in the past, which means new solutions tailored to the present-day problems must be sought. In this respect, a consistent and internationally coordinated response to the crisis must be made compatible with a reasonable adaptation to the specific circumstances of each country. For example, it is one thing handling a bank crisis in a country where the major systemic institutions have been seriously affected and where, therefore, a rapid response is called for, providing all the public aid needed to avoid the harmful consequences that a bank failure might have on the banking sector and on the economy as a whole.
It is very important for our small and open economy that the powerful common market we are joining would operate as efficiently as possible and that a climate favouring innovative ideas would be predominant in Europe. According to the economic theory, the aim of the economic policy of a small country is to react fast in the changing circumstances and respond to the changes in the global economy in time. Our Estonian experience confirms this economic principle. The first prerequisite for a flexible economy is the faith in the durability of the core values of economic policy. This means abiding by the law and the fact that contracts are honoured and ownership relations stable. It certainly involves faith in the stability of the currency. The latter in turn is inseparably linked to the reliability of the financial system. •  Another prerequisite for flexible economy is education and openness to new ideas. •  Flexible economy also requires a favourable public attitude towards entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs must have the opportunity to implement their ideas and engage capital, labour, and information at a fair market price and with as little trouble as possible. •  To sum up what has been said above, we could say that creating a flexible and competitive economic framework is the main economic policy task for Estonia. With this task we would also adopt the principal viewpoints of the Lisbon strategy comprising the economic policy priorities and directions for development in the European Union today.

40 On MAS’ end, we will continue our financial education efforts as an integral part of our regulatory and supervisory work. These will encompass heightened surveillance, investigation and enforcement actions with other authorities. 41 It leaves me to reiterate that investors should always seek to understand the issuer and product before investing in them. Remember to “Ask. Check. Confirm”. There will be a short halfminute video on this at the end of my remarks. Do also visit the pop-up exhibition booth outside the theatre to learn more about the resources available to help you. 42 Thank you for your attention. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
So I do want to emphasise that a key part of our supervisory approach is to be alert to emerging risks that may not seem as relevant when you are at the lending coalface as they appear to be when aggregated and analysed on a supervisor’s desktop. I know that many of you will be familiar with our Supervisory Statement 20/15 on building societies’ lending and treasury operations (commonly known as “the Sourcebook”, reflecting its origins as an FSA document). This document sets out our expectations as to how society boards and management should achieve adequate risk controls over the business that they choose to undertake. These expectations have not emerged from a vacuum, but are informed by what we saw happening in the run-up to the crisis of 2008. The Supervisory Statement does not seek to stop boards from developing new strategies and lines of business, but it does articulate supervisory expectations as to how this activity can be done safely, in line with the PRA’s objectives. Across the wider market, we are observing – not from all firms, but definitely from a few (and some of them building societies) – a shift in credit risk appetite as lenders compete with each other to find ways of widening the pool of available borrowers, increasing the size of loans available to them, or reducing the credit premium  46  http://www.fsa.gov.uk/library/communication/speeches/2004/sp176.shtml 17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  17  charged for inherently more risky loans.

It may partly reflect very low levels of current policy rates and any spillovers from that.3 It may also reflect the term premia for inflation that are currently very compressed in some countries, for example, the US and in the Euro area. And it may also be a symptom of a more entrenched pessimism – an over-pessimism in my view – about long-term economic prospects, possibly due to fears of the de-integration of the global economy or concerns about future effectiveness of monetary policy. But, more fundamentally, the very low level of market interest rates reflects an underlying structural trend – the fall in long-run real interest rates since the early 1980s4 – that has been the subject of a great deal of research. The literature has identified a large number of candidate explanations – both real and financial – for a structural decline in the long-run real interest rate. These include: demographic trends and, in particular, increased longevity; lower trend productivity growth; the liberalization of financial intermediation and an increase in the risk borne by individuals and households.5  The long-run equilibrium real interest rates determined by these factors are, of course, unobservable. There is a range of estimates for how far they have fallen.
Some of the aspects we feel should be given priority are:  •  –  how to deal with financial institutions that are not yet regulated, such as financial conglomerates and highly-leveraged institutions, or certain types of financial holding;  –  how to deal with remote financial services. Finally, regulators must ensure that the new regulatory mechanisms they have devised fit in with the other objectives of economic policy. The impact of these regulations on the real economy must be carefully assessed in order to avoid privileging stability to the detriment of efficiency by creating new competitive distortions. In general, prudential concerns about financial stability, monetary concerns about price stability and social concerns, that is, protecting consumers, must be reconciled. In conclusion, allow me to mention the key role played by central banks in reinforcing financial stability First of all, I would like to stress what I feel is the highly complementary nature of the price stability and financial stability objectives. I believe that price stability is the bedrock on which financial stability is built. It is of course a prerequisite. Secondly, I consider central banks to bear a special responsibility arising on their central position at the heart of financial systems: •  They contribute directly to supplying liquidity to the economy. •  Their close and constant contacts with credit institutions give them a thorough understanding of banking systems. •  They are responsible for ensuring that payment systems operate smoothly.

The situation would be even more critical if the bank was at the same time a relatively small actor in its own country. In this type of situation the supervisory authority in the home country – which in this case is the one that decides – would probably consider that the need for supervision was not as great as the other countries might consider it to be. There is an evident risk of a conflict of interests between the countries. 2  BIS Review 38/2007  There are elements of similar problems in the Nordea case, too. However, here the problem is rather the opposite – namely that the bank group’s different companies (parent and subsidiaries) would be covered by supervision in several countries. The fact that each cross-border bank group has to obey and report to several supervisory authorities leads to additional costs and administrative duties for the bank. This is an obstacle to continued integration and to the competitiveness of the European bank market. Another problem is that there are no common arrangements for crisis management within the EU. Basically the only EC regulations defining how responsibility should be divided between the countries in the event of a cross-border crisis are regulations for compensating depositors in the case of bank failures. However, these regulations are not primarily intended to ensure efficient crisis management. They should rather be seen as protection for consumers.
That weekly pay packet in 2008 has, in purchasing power terms, fallen to be worth only around £ per week. This makes the recent period very unusual by historical standards (Chart 1). Since as far back as 1870, there have been only two episodes when the real pay of workers has fallen over a ten-year period. The other episodes were associated with seismic shocks in the labour market, often wrenching technological change or sharp cyclical downturns, which raised levels of unemployment and job insecurity. The past decade has bucked that historical trend, with a boom in job creation accompanying weak pay growth. The employment rate in the UK has risen to over 60%, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4%, respectively their highest and lowest levels since the mid-1970s. The vast majority of these new jobs, around 75%, have been full-time. And this boom has persisted, with around 830,000 job vacancies currently being advertised – the highest since records began. This picture of weak pay and strong employment has been broadly-based, spanning all regions and sectors. Real pay has fallen across every region of the UK since 2008 (Figure 1) and in all three major sectors of the economy (Chart 2). Meanwhile, unemployment has fallen steeply across every region of the UK, by at least 2.5 percentage points. The high-level picture of the UK labour market, then, is a jobs-rich but pay-poor recovery. This pattern is broadly replicated in other countries.

28  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  28  Chart 22: Automation exposure vs. change in labour share by industry Change in labour share 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3 -0.5  -0.4  -0.3  -0.2  -0.1  0  0.1  0.2  0.3  0.4  0.5  Initial automation rate Source: ONS, Frey and Osborne (2013) and Bank calculations. Note: Data shown at SIC1-digit level. X-axis shows an estimate for the automation rate in 2001 based on Frey and Osborne estimates for the future probability of automation by occupation. Y-axis shows change in labour share between 2001 and 2016. Size of bubbles represents size of industry. Trend line weighted by size of industry. Chart 23: Settlements data (whole economy) Per cent 5  4  3  2  1  0 2002  2004  2006  2008  2010  2012  2014  2016  2018  Whole economy settlement (12m mean) Whole economy settlement (3m mean) Source: Bank of England, Incomes Data Research, XpertHR, Incomes Data Service, Labour Research Department and Bank calculations. Note: “3m mean” refers to annualised three month-on-three month settlement rate, and “12m mean” refers to settlement compared to same period a year earlier.
Muhammad bin Ibrahim: Brief overview of Malaysia’s insurance industry Welcoming speech by Mr Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia’s 40th Anniversary Dinner, Kuala Lumpur, 21 November 2014. *  *  *  I am pleased to be here to celebrate the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia’s 40th anniversary dinner. I notice the presence of a number of senior and veterans who have previously served in the industry, as well as the next generation of leaders who shall bring the Malaysia’s insurance industry to the next level of excellence. Over the course of 40 years, the insurance industry has seen significant development and progress. Many of you present here join me in bearing witness to the important strides that have been made to bring the industry to where it is today. These achievements go well beyond the individual successes of any one company, any one individual. The most significant milestones were accomplished through the collective vision of the industry coming together to lay the strong foundations for future growth. The Association has been instrumental in this process, working closely with the Bank since we assumed the regulatory function of the insurance industry from the Ministry of Finance back in 1988. Industry’s achievements Today, the life insurance industry contributes 2.8% of Malaysia’s Gross National Income (GNI), with premiums totalling RM26 billion in 2013. More than 18,000 are employed in the industry.

Medical inflation has been on a rising trend with millions of ringgit spent in Malaysia on healthcare expenditure each year. Old age and urban poverty are also on the rise with many exhausting their lifetime savings within the first five years of retirement. These are structural issues that have deep implications on the industry. It should be discussed and debated intelligently. To my mind, the focus of debate therefore should be on how to improve the productivity of agents, and ensure that they are well supported through training and continuing professional development and given all the assistance to provide quality advice and services to the public. More should be done to educate consumers on the benefits of insurance and the advantages of purchasing insurance while one is young and healthy. In this regard, the industry should come together and address the reasons for the low take up of annuity products despite the tax relief and incentives provided by the Government in 2012. Initiatives should be pursued to expand affordable product offerings for lower income groups that are most vulnerable to income shocks or unanticipated expenditures. Another area that is becoming significant because of medical inflation is ensuring that medical and health insurance provides adequate protection and remains affordable through well designed products, proper underwriting and effective control of claims costs should be a priority. The issues I had outlined are formidable and these cannot be accomplished without concerted effort by all of us here.