samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This is the situation currently existing at the Banco de España, which has a solid structure based on an Audit Committee and 12 other committees, some with a very significant mandate, such as the Steering Committee and the recently created Financial Stability Committee. This modus operandi is particularly important for the analysis of economic policy in general, and of monetary policy in particular, as well as for the exercise of supervisory powers, given the complexity of the environment and regulations, the profusion of data, the influence of external and internal factors and the different elements that need to be taken into consideration to assess the probability and severity of the risks. All of this means that every possible viewpoint of experts of proven experience and specialisation is required, to ensure that the responsible bodies are in a position to take the most appropriate decisions. This way of proceeding is also the one most commonly used by our central bank and supervisory peers. It is embedded, for example, in the structure of the ECB, which includes various committees supporting its decision-making bodies, with representatives from all NCBs and the ECB, and in that of the SSM, which is based on joint supervisory teams (JSTs) of staff of the ECB and the national authorities who participate in formulating the proposals that are submitted to the Supervisory Board. This body decides on the action to take in this area on a collegiate basis, through the high-level representatives of which it is composed.

regarding leave of absence or the establishment or extension of periods of leave). Lastly, financial independence means that an independent institution has sufficient financial resources to equip itself with material and human resources for the pursuit of its mission. In this respect, the Banco de España has sufficient financial capacity as a result of the revenue sources legally and statutorily assigned to it, and it is able to draw on such revenue to cover its functioning costs. The difference between each year’s revenue and costs is made over to the Public Treasury, bolstering State revenues. Accordingly, the Banco de España uses the resources available to it observing the principles of efficiency and effectiveness that should govern the use of all public funds. I believe the Banco de España’s legal framework and experience as a financially and organisationally independent institution can be a good benchmark for any future redesign of other economic supervisors in Spain which, in some cases, enjoy less autonomy. 4  Article 24 of the Law of Autonomy provides that the Governor of the Banco de España shall be appointed by the King following a proposal by the Prime Minister. Nominees must be Spanish and must have recognised competence in monetary or banking matters. Prior to the appointment of the Governor, the Minister for Economy and Finance shall appear before the relevant parliamentary committee under the terms envisaged in Article 203 of the Spanish Parliamentary Internal Regulations, to report on the proposed candidate.
Enlarged participation in the SSM is a great opportunity for setting a level playing field in supervisory practices across the EU. At the same time, a series of conceptual questions need to be addressed. For one, it is hard to imagine that countries not participating in the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) might act as a financial safety net for troubled but solvent banks, in the event that a privately financed resolution fund is not yet adequately funded. The next steps The establishment of the SSM represents a great opportunity for financial integration in Europe. Let me now turn to the next steps in the establishment of the SSM. First, the swift adoption of the SSM Regulation is essential. Definite plans are crucial in order to uphold the current momentum of the stabilisation of the euro. The general expectation is  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  that the SSM will be established early this year, with an effective operational start 12 months later. Second, the design of a supervisory model, including the allocation of tasks between centre and periphery is critical for the success of the SSM. In this regard, work is already under way by the ECB in cooperation with national competent authorities – subject to the final legal wording. Third, the SSM will need to carry out a comprehensive review of the banks that fall under the direct supervision of the ECB.

Gent Sejko: Launching of the new Albanian banknote serie Address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the launching of the new Albanian banknote serie, Tirana, 12 September 2019. * * * Honourable Minister Denaj and Minister Shalësi, Your Excellencies, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure to have you with us in this very important day for the Bank of Albania and our national currency. In the history of the modern Albanian state, the establishment and modernisation of its monetary and financial systems has a substantial place. The Albanian currency is a symbol that has been present throughout the development of the country, bearing distinctive features of each era in the history of Albania. It is not a coincidence that one of the key objectives in the creation of a national bank was, among others, the issue of the Albanian currency, immediately after the sublime act of the Declaration of Independence that laid the foundations on which the Albanian state was created. In 1926, one year on from its founding, in 1925, the National Bank of Albania presented and put in circulation, for the first time, a complete series of Albanian banknotes and coins. Subsequent developments in the centralisation and later modernisation of the Albanian state dictated the need for continuous improvements of banknotes in terms of both content and design. It has always represented, however, the economic, social and political development phases of Albania.
These steps served to stabilize private currency issuers and their currencies, but there were other benefits of the approach that are easy to overlook: we disincentivized less desirable products—wildcat notes (that is, by imposing taxes on them); certain key participants in the system—specifically the custodian banks and trust companies—were already regulated institutions; bank notes had a certain level of transparency built in—a holder’s right to receive payment and from whom was literally written on the face of the note; and for all intents and purposes, federal law and regulation were ubiquitous. We have also developed comprehensive regulatory schemes targeted at other widely-used financial products as they have evolved, including recent work to regulate swap transactions. If digital currencies reach critical mass, we may want to draw on lessons from these efforts and consider whether tools for regulating systemically important activities are fit for purpose. The designation process under the Dodd-Frank Act for systemically important financial institutions may be instructive here, regardless of whether it is directly applicable to digital currencies. In this process, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) has the authority to designate for enhanced regulation and supervision certain financial institutions, financial market infrastructures, and payments, clearing, and settlement (PCS) activities, to the extent that FSOC determines the organization or activity to be systemically important.

That episode was characterized by a widespread reduction in the provision of credit by banks in response to loan losses and the need to raise capital. The resiliency we have observed over the past decade or so is not just good luck. It is the consequence of efforts by regulatory, supervisory and private financial institutions to address previous sources of systemic instability. Risk management has improved significantly, and the major firms have made substantial progress toward more sophisticated measurement and control of concentration to specific risk factors. What seems to have been most critical in preventing financial market turmoil from translating into a significant reduction in credit provision by banks and other financial institutions were the steps taken by regulatory authorities and financial institutions alike to strengthen capital in the core of the financial system, and to measure and manage risk. These efforts have most notably manifested themselves in increased levels of risk-adjusted capital in the core of the system relative to what prevailed in the early 1990s. In the United States, for example, tier-one risk-based capital ratios have stabilized near 8.5 percent, considerably higher than the estimated levels around 6.5 percent for the early 1990s. This is based on a relatively crude measure of risk, but the direction of the improvement is right and the magnitude of the change is significant.
In these circumstances, tightening prudential measures early on might seem a very reasonable thing to do. It is important to underline that in heavily bank dominated financial system, banking regulations might serve also as an instrument to affect domestic demand more directly than under other circumstances. Indeed, Bank of Estonia increased capital adequacy ratio on more or less cyclical grounds in 1996 and tightened capital requirements further at the onset of Asian contagion, before the peak of the cycle. Having said that, one should not look over the possible caveats of this "macro-prudential" policy approach. One obvious shortcoming is that as financial markets do mature and financial instruments become more complex, tightening banking regulations will simply intensify financial disintermediation. In that case, major capital flows will be channeled to less regulated areas that will bring about new risks of potentially systemic nature. The second problem is that the determination of the exact stage of business cycle is simply impossible. The longer it takes, the more weight is given to the consideration whether the tightening would not emerge too late and contrary to the best intentions, would contribute to pro-cyclical behavior of banks. To be honest, we have recently thought what approach would be suitable for us to take at present and we have understood that the topic is debated also in several present EU member states. VII.

Contrary to some recent proposals i, we shouldn’t, according to me, get rid of the numerical targets which are in the Treaty: they are useful anchors, including the 3% deficit which is – in the case of France – more or less the threshold that would stabilize the public debt ratio at its pre-covid level. But the revised rules, without changing the Treaty, should be based on a long-term debt trajectory and on a single operational target, namely a ceiling on the growth rate of public expenditure as proposed by the European Fiscal Board (EFB), chaired by the Danish economist Pr. Niels Thygesen. First, we can keep the 60% long-term debt anchor. But the 1/20 linear rule of yearly adjustment towards it is too demanding and should be made more country-specific. Second, for the operational target, relying only on the current interest burden, as suggested by some, would be at the same time short-termist and too partial: the levels of the total public deficit and of public debt remains key to assess the sustainability of public debt in the face of unexpected shocks. But interest payments could be included in a net expenditure rule, unlike the EFB proposal which excludes them. At constant taxation rate, a rule based on total government expenditure growth would make it possible to control both the public  deficit and the public debt, since, implicitly, it incorporates a fiscal response to changes in the interest burden.
And it would be all too easy to give into protectionism. But as we learned in the 1930s, that road leads neither to equity nor prosperity. Raising barriers to trade disproportionately hurts the least well off through higher prices and fewer opportunities. 27  27  Fajgelbaum, P.D. and Khandelwal, A.K. (2016), ‘Measuring the Unequal Gains from Trade’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 131, Issue 3, shows that past episodes of trade liberalisation have disproportionately benefited poor households, in every country, through reductions in consumer prices and increases in product variety. 13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  13  Escaping the low inflation / low wage / low growth trap requires more than a textbook rebalancing of macro policies across the major regions. It demands comprehensive structural reforms and a new approach to trade policy. Such changes could more than make up for the dramatic fall in the real incomes that UK households have experienced in the decade since the crisis. 28  The Brexit negotiations will be the test. May the hundreds in this room pass it by working towards innovative, cooperative and responsible solutions to the benefit of the tens of millions outside. 28  As my colleague Andy Haldane noted in his speech ‘Productivity Puzzles’(available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2017/speech968.pdf), if productivity growth in the second, third and fourth quartiles of the distribution of UK firms’ productivity could be boosted to match the productivity of the quartile above, then arithmetically that would deliver a boost to aggregate UK productivity of around 13%.

A Fine Balance Speech given by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England  The Mansion House, London 20 June 2017  I am grateful to Clare Macallan and Iain de Weymarn for their assistance in preparing these remarks, and to David Bailey, James Benford, Paul Brione, Bob Gilhooly, Jeremy Martin, Eleonora Mavroeidi, Alex Michie, Anisha Tibrewal, Kenny Turnbull, Simon Whitaker and Tom Wise for background research and analysis. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  I. Introduction My Lord Mayor, Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen. In recent weeks, we have been reminded of fine balances: in decisions, in parliament, in life. The fine balance between hope and despair. 1  Despair at the murder of Jo Cox. Hope in her remarkable life of service – an inspiration that lives on in her family, friends, colleagues and many admirers. Despair at the terrorist attacks in Manchester, Borough Market and Finsbury Park. Despair at the tragedy of Grenfell Tower. Hope in the heroism, resiliency and the community of the responses. Hope when we recognise our common humanity. The best tribute this City and this Country can give to the memories of those lost is to renew our shared commitment – whatever our differences – to promote the common good. This includes pursuing a Brexit, and building an economy, that works for all. ------------------------------------Since the prospect of Brexit emerged, financial markets, notably sterling, have marked down the UK’s economic prospects.
As a result, the discussion sometimes seems to resemble the discussions of “demand management” in the 1970s more than the monetarist debates of the 1980s. But, if anyone was in any doubt, monetarism was not dead but only resting. And it has recently taken wing again as persistent monetary growth and rising asset prices have given us food for thought. At times the discussion of money can seem detached from the rest of the policy debate. Having listed all the other aspects of the economy factors – like world growth, consumption, financial markets and the labour market – “money” emerges as though it was a separate determinant impacting directly on inflation or inflation expectations like Heineken “refreshing the parts other beers cannot reach”. 9 But money is very much part of the real world and we don’t need any hidden or ghostly mechanisms to see how it feeds through credit, asset prices and consumption in the wider economy. 8  The clearest example is the service offered by London Clearing House, where dealers effectively transact with each other (via gilt repo transactions) across the balance sheet of LCH, which results in an increase in both OFC’s deposits with and borrowing from banks. Similarly, in the case of a synthetic securitisation of corporate bonds, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) is set up to issue securities to investors and holds a cash deposit at a bank from which it makes payments if any of the securitised loans default.

-  After this first contact, and once the Fintechs had started the actual  authorisation or registration process, the average time taken to ensure their applications were complete and decide on their legal classification was in line with the Charter – two to three weeks depending on the legal status – although  Page 3 of 5 for a third of cases it took longer; this was notably due to the sharp rise in applications (up 20% on last year). -  Once an application had been submitted, the deadline for examining it  was met in 84% of cases, with the average time standing at 12 days – less than the average of 17 days it took for applicants to respond! We are therefore well on the way to meeting the ambitious target deadlines set out in the Fintech Charter. This allows us to respond to the first criticism levelled against us: the lack of visibility over the application procedure and the amount of time they take. We shall continue our efforts to ensure we gradually get closer to our target deadlines, and not just in average terms (we have already met it this year), but for all individual cases. II. In France and Europe, we need to keep pace with the digital transformations under way Our attention is focused in particular on another aspect of the digital evolution: crypto-assets.
Expressed in terms of a path for the price level, it is thus sufficient if it has the same slope as before (upper right figure). It does not matter that the new path is below the original one. But if one instead has a price level target, one must return to the earlier path (upper left figure). This means that inflation must be above 2 per cent for a period of time to compensate for the earlier period when it was below that (lower left figure). One advantage with a price level target may thus be that economic agents will adjust their expectations in such a way that they anticipate that a low inflation rate today will be compensated by more expansionary policy, faster growth and higher inflation in the future. The downward pressure on real interest rates caused by this alleviates the original downturn in production and inflation and speeds up the future recovery. This may of course be particularly beneficial during the periods when the lower bound sets a restraint. One disadvantage of a price level target is that the central bank cannot disregard, or “see through”, supply shocks that temporary push up inflation. As one needs to return to the same path for the price level, a period of unusually high inflation – regardless of the cause – must be followed by a contractionary policy that holds back price developments and contributes a period of unusually low inflation. The 24 See Bernanke (2017a).

Bernanke’s proposal of a temporary price level target can therefore be regarded as a special application of Yellen’s “makeup strategy”, where one aims to make the “makeup” mechanism specific and potentially more credible by formalising it in terms of a temporary new target definition for the central bank. Higher inflation target A proposal for which Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is one of the strongest advocates is to raise the central banks’ inflation targets. 28 The idea is straightforward. With a higher inflation target, say 3 per cent, the nominal policy rate would be on average 1 percentage point higher compared to when the inflation target is 2 per cent, assuming that the new target is credible. There would therefore be a further 1 percentage point to reduce the rate before it reaches its lower bound. An increase in the inflation target to 4 per cent would increase the scope for reducing the policy rate by another percentage point, and so on. However, some argue that raising the target is not a good idea. One fear is that higher inflation would mean that inflation would also vary more, which indeed ap-  26  See also, for instance, Evans (2012). 27 One might also therefore call this approach a temporary target for average inflation. A target for average infla-  tion is a strategy reminiscent of a price level target, but nevertheless different in certain aspects, see Nessén and Vestin (2005) or Andersson and Claussen (2017).
At the SNB, we are aware of these benefits and have been using FX EAs for our reserve management. In our view, EAs can be useful execution tools in order to reduce market impact and help minimise our footprint in the FX market. But the increased use of execution algorithms may also change the dynamics of FX markets. EAs make it easier to shift trading activity away from public trading venues to proprietary platforms. And this so-called ‘internalisation’ of FX trading creates new challenges. Too many internalised trades could reduce the trading volume at primary venues to a point where the price discovery process is jeopardised. More research is needed to ascertain whether – and to what extent – the growing use of EAs could trigger or amplify flash events in the markets. These changes complicate market monitoring for central banks, which need to be alert to market dislocation, liquidity issues and volatility – as the market turmoil in March last year once again illustrated. To guard against risks arising from these changing dynamics, central banks must step up their efforts to monitor and analyse these markets. This is no small feat. Besides developing new market functioning indicators, it involves accessing a whole new generation of data – possibly at sub-millisecond frequency. For this, we need to set up a new data architecture, new tools and new expertise. In order to address such challenges the SNB and the BIS Innovation Hub’s Swiss Centre have launched a big data project called ‘Project Rio’.

Arthur Yuen: Promoting economic and social development in Asia Welcome remarks by Mr Arthur Yuen, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (on behalf of Mr Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority), at the seminar on "President Jin Liqun on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s Operations and Projects", Hong Kong, 8 November 2016. * * * President Jin, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this seminar on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)’s Operations and Projects, organised by the HKMA Infrastructure Financing Facilitation Office (IFFO). On behalf of the HKMA, I’m honoured to welcome President Jin to Hong Kong to meet with leaders from the financial and business sectors who have an interest in infrastructure project planning and management. I am delighted to see the strong level of interest and the diversity of business leaders represented in the field. AIIB is an important establishment in promoting economic and social development in Asia. Boasting an initial capital of $ billion and a founding membership of 57 countries, AIIB came into operation in January 2016 with a mandate in the development of infrastructure and other productive sectors in Asia, including energy and power, transportation and telecommunications, rural infrastructure and agriculture development, water supply and sanitation, environmental protection, urban development and logistics. As we are all aware, President Jin has played an instrumental role in shaping up the formation and the guiding principles of AIIB.