samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In this respect, the BCBS, which I have the honour to chair, has resolved to delay by one year (from 2022 to 2023) the implementation of the revised methodology of identification of global systemically important institutions and also the full implementation of Basel III. The BCBS has also postponed the end of the transitional period for capital requirement floors for banks using internal models to 1 January 2028. In any event, the BCBS has confirmed that all jurisdictions are committed to the full, consistent and timely transposition of the Basel III regulations in accordance with the new calendar. Second, in the accounting sphere, certain aspects relating to how the existing regulations should be applied to calculate credit risk have been clarified, to ensure that potential temporary delays in loan repayments by borrowers are not treated as if they were a case of permanent impairment of loan quality. The latter would lead to an immediate and abrupt correction in credit ratings and, therefore, to an increase in the provisions required, which  3  See P. Aguilar, Ó. Arce, S. Hurtado, J. Martínez-Martín, G. Nuño and C. Thomas (2020), The ECB monetary policy response to the COVID-19 crisis, Occasional Paper No 2026. Banco de España. 12  would ultimately lead to a decline in credit extended by banks. In exchange, especially should the crisis become prolonged, it is necessary to ensure that misuse of this flexibility does not lead to inappropriate accounting practices that may translate into delayed recognition of actual quality impairment of some credit exposures.

Michael Gondwe: Economic and financial sector developments in Zambia Speech by Dr Michael Gondwe, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the official launch of the Zambia National Commercial Bank Limited (Zanaco) Ndola West Branch, Ndola, 27 June 2013. *  *  *  The Managing Director, Zanaco Members of the Executive Management Team Members of the Press Distinguished invited Guests Ladies and Gentlemen Let me begin by tendering apologies on behalf of the Governor of the Bank of Zambia, Dr. Michael Gondwe who is not able to be with us this evening as he is attending to other commitments. He however requested that I represent him at this important occasion. It is therefore my honor and privilege to officiate at this important occasion to launch the new Ndola west Branch of Zambia National Commercial Bank Limited. I am told that the Branch was initially on Maina Soko Road opposite Barclays Bank and that the bank decided to move here because the place is bigger, which I believe will provide a better and spacious environment. Distinguished Guests, the Bank of Zambia is reliably informed that since the inception of the bank more than 37 years ago, Zanaco has grown its customer base to over 640,000 and has grown its network of branches and agencies to 64, in addition to the branch being launched today, 53 Zanaco Xpress offices and 26 Zanaco agents. The bank has also invested in more than 162 ATMs and 465 Merchant POS terminals.
Tackling this challenge is especially important at the current juncture, given the confluence of an intense digitalisation of economic activity, marked population ageing and various factors that may require a profound cross-sectoral reallocation of activity. In this regard, given the current changes in the demand for training, which are likely to intensify in the years ahead, the education system should be flexible and provide a decisive response. To absorb the rise in demand for vocational training, the RTRP aims to provide 200,000 more vocational training places in the coming years. Furthermore, the Organic Vocational Training Bill fosters the accreditation of skills — not only for students, but also for adults — and promotes tools to increase collaboration between training centres, universities and firms. In addition, harnessing the opportunities of digitalisation calls for increasing the population’s digital skills, especially in the case of the older generation, those with lower educational attainment levels and those on lower incomes. A comprehensive skill recycling strategy throughout the life cycle is also key in a setting in which society finds itself faced with marked population ageing and, at the same time, the need to extend people’s working life. Active labour market policies are also vital to limiting the loss of human capital stemming from job losses. A recent Banco de España paper shows that job displacements in a 16  collective dismissal lead to a sharp reduction (of 16 pp) in Spanish workers’ employability five years later.

Equity and bond financing have gained in importance relative to lending from banks. This diversification of funding is positive for financial stability, since the dominating role of the banks in providing loans is reduced. From the issuers and also the investors’ viewpoint the existence of active markets ensures good competition, leading to efficiency and favourable loan terms. To sum up, the Swedish financial sector contains many different types of institutions and markets and competition is strong. This is fine, because our crisis taught us the problems of being overly reliant on the banking system. The tendency is that the other institutions take markets shares from the banks, for instance in providing channels for saving. But since many of those institutions form part of bank groups, the bank groups’ overall share of the financial system is not reduced to the same extent. Recent developments in the composition and structure of financial services In addition to the developments in the institutions and markets, we are also witnessing new trends in financial services. Mutual funds, money market funds, equity funds etcetera are growing rapidly. Depositors seek higher yields than those offered by bank deposits and they invest in various securities and asset funds. Banks and other asset managers, including hedge funds, make large profits from this business. The effects on financial stability are unclear. On the one hand, the growth of the funds means more liquidity to the equity and securities markets so they can provide more financing of investments hence reducing the reliance on bank lending.
And the picture is similar on the life insurance side, with virtually all of the growth in UK life insurers’ balance sheets since the early part of this century coming from unit-linked products where the investment risk is borne by endinvestors (Chart 5). 4 The measures announced in the UK Budget a couple of weeks ago will add momentum to these trends. These will remove the effective requirement on most retirees to purchase an annuity with DC pension pots once retirement age is reached. This will increase the flexibility of investors’ portfolio choice. But it will also tend to place a greater onus on these endinvestors to manage the associated investment risk. These trends in the contractual structure of liabilities have risk implications for end-investors and the financial system as a whole. A key question, here, is how household behaviour is likely to respond to bearing these additional risks, especially in situations of stress. Will investors ride them out or run to the hills, stick or twist? It is impossible to know for certain. But experience during the crisis is revealing. Then, households in a number of countries exhibited acute risk-sensitivity and risk-aversion. For example, UK households responded to heightened market risk by reducing contributions to long-term savings products, such as life insurance and DC pensions. Household net contributions to life insurance and pension funds fell from £ billion in 2006 to £ billion in 2008. This suggests some skittishness on the part of retail investors when faced with investment risk.

10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Chart 1 Total AUM of US insurance companies, pension funds, mutual funds and other funds, 1946 – 2013 ICPFs Mutual funds (a) Other non-property funds  Per cent of GDP 250  Chart 2 Total AUM of UK insurance companies, pension funds and mutual funds, 1980 – 2012 ICPFs  Mutual funds  Per cent of GDP 250  200  46 51 56 61 66 71 76 81 86 91 96 01 06 11  150  150  100  100  50  50  0  Source: US flow of funds  80 83 86 89 92 95 98 01 04 07 10  Chart 3 Relationship between GDP per capita and managed assets  Chart 4 Global assets under management in selected specialised mutual fund types(a) 60,000 50,000 40,000  Emerging market Corporate bond High Yield Mortgage-backed Total Return  $ billions 900  30,000  800 700 600 500 400  20,000  0 100 200 300 AUM of ICPFs and mutual funds as per cent of GDP  0  Source: OECD, ONS, Investment Management Association and Bank calculations  (a) Other non-property funds include closed-end funds, exchange-traded funds and money market mutual funds  GDP per capita, $ current prices  200  300  10,000  200  0  100  Source: OECD Statistical database and Bank calculations.
(2018), “ Euro Clearing – the open race”, keynote speech at the Frankfurt Finance Summit, Frankfurt,  29 May. 5 Bursian, D. and Faia, E. (2018), “Trust in the monetary authority”, Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 98, pp. 66–79. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches

Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: Reform of the financial sector Opening remarks by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the Third Conference on the reform of the financial sector on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Expansión, organised by Expansión and KPMG, Madrid, 13 May 2011. *  *  *  Let me first thank Expansión and KPMG for kindly inviting me to take part in this forum on the reform of the financial sector. Financial system reform is under worldwide scrutiny by multilateral agencies, governments, central banks, supervisors and even public opinion. Their interest is understandable, as the unprecedentedly acute economic crisis in recent years did indeed originate in the financial system. The concern to identify the errors that led us to crisis and, above all, to prevent it recurring is therefore not surprising. The response to the crisis is largely taking shape in the international arena, given that the main factors at its root have a global reach. Also, many of the measures needed to prevent its recurrence can only be implemented if they are tackled in a coordinated fashion by the main world economies. In recent years we have also witnessed changes in world economic governance of a speed and on a scale that would have been inconceivable a short time ago.
In addition, the uncertainty engendered by the financial crisis had led to a strong appreciation of the Swiss franc against the euro. In view of the economic situation prevailing in Switzerland at that time, there was the risk of a pronounced deflationary trend, in particular if the Swiss franc were to appreciate further. This risk necessitated a further easing of our monetary policy. The substantial monetary policy easing therefore continued, with a further 25 basis point reduction in the Libor target range in March 2009. This left the new range at 0.0–0.75%, where it has since remained. The SNB aims to keep the Libor in the lower end of the range, i.e. at around 0.25%; the one-week repo rate has been at practically zero since the end of 2008. The room for manoeuvre using the traditional interest rate instrument was thus effectively exhausted in March 2009. To relax monetary conditions further, the SNB significantly increased liquidity. It did so via a number of unconventional monetary policy instruments. It concluded longer-term repos and purchased bonds issued by private sector borrowers. It also bought foreign exchange on the foreign currency market and acted to prevent the Swiss franc from appreciating further against the euro up to the end of the year. Against the background of the economic recovery, following its monetary policy assessment in December the SNB is acting only to decisively counter an excessive appreciation of the Swiss franc against the euro.

That of course is cold comfort to the manufacturing businesses that were most affected, and to the regions - including the North West, where there is a relatively high concentration of manufacturing business. And you were severely affected last year too by the impact of Foot and Mouth Disease on agriculture and tourism. The frustrating thing for us has been that there was very little that we at the Bank could do through monetary policy - or indeed that the Government could do - to address the problems at source. That’s fairly obvious when we’re talking about the weakening of demand in the other major economies. Some people have suggested that we might have done more to weaken the exchange rate particularly against the generally weak euro - by cutting our interest rates more aggressively, but it really isn’t as simple as that: exchange rates don’t respond predictably to relative interest rates certainly in the short term; if anything in recent conditions cutting them further could even have had a perverse effect. What we were able to do, given that inflation was under control, by cutting interest rates as we did last year, was to try to compensate for the external weakness by stimulating domestic demand growth here in the UK. Given the weakness of business confidence, and therefore investment, reflecting the external pressures, that meant essentially stimulating consumer demand.
Furthermore, the extent of a country’s total financial regulatory effort encompassed by the term ‘banking supervision’ varies - most British banks have set up separate subsidiaries for their trading activity, regulated by securities regulators (though the responsibility for consolidated supervision remains with the Bank of England); by contrast, European banks tend to retain trading within the banking entity. It is also not always apparent whether the central bank is in practice free to set interest rates to achieve the monetary policy objectives which derive from its own statutes or from objectives set by government. The Bundesbank clearly has that freedom; and the other EU member states have been legislating in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty to give their central banks independence in the field of monetary policy. In Britain, even though there have been very welcome improvements in the transparency of monetary policy formulation since 1992, decisions on interest rates remain clearly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer though now within a clear inflation target framework. In Japan the position is under review. The ultimate authority on interest rates has rested legally with the Minister of Finance, though according to Goodhart, Capie and Schnadt “it is widely understood that it would be extraordinary if the government resorted to these provisions, and they have never been enacted”.2 The same authors conclude that the Bank of Japan “has thus enjoyed independence in practice”.

We have given advice principally on core functions such as monetary policy and operations, the development of money markets and payment systems, the management of government debt, and banking supervision; but our help has also been sought in some less obvious matters such as the physical security of central bank buildings and their contents. The assistance is provided through our experts visiting other central banks and by their staff coming on study visits to London, as well as through seminars and workshops here and abroad. In the earlier years most of these events were essentially training courses. But increasingly the participants from many countries are able to contribute more themselves to the discussion so that they are now learning not only from our own experience as central bankers, BIS Review 33/1997  -2-  but also from each other. And in some instances, their experience may well hold lessons for us. Since 1990 over 4,000 staff of other central banks - two thirds of them from the transition economies - have participated in these various events. The work of the Centre for Central Banking Studies, and the other inter-bank links we maintain (notably between supervisors) give us, I believe, a privileged perspective on the development of central banking across Europe. The analysis below - particularly the Eastern European sections - is very largely the work of Lionel Price, the Centre’s Director, and his staff.
[7]  According to European Commission estimates, the average annual contribution from TFP to growth in potential output was 0.6 p.p in the euro area and 0.9 p.p in the US between 2001 and 2015. The equivalent figures for capital accumulation are 0.5 and 0.8 p.p., while labour contributed by 0.2 p.p. in both cases. [8]  For a similar argument made in a different context, see: Krugman, P. (1994), “The Myth of Asia’s Miracle”, Foreign Affairs, 73:6. [9]  See Cœuré, B. (2014b), “Credit and Investment in the European Recovery”, speech at the IMF/Banka Slovenije high-level seminar on “Reinvigorating Credit Growth in Central, Eastern and Southern European Economies”, Portoroz, 26 September. [10]  See Hege et al. (2009), “Venture Capital Performance: The Disparity Between Europe and the United States”, The paper provides evidence for the existence of a gap between the value generated by US venture capital investments and European investments that is statistically significant and very large in economic terms. [11]  See ECB (2016): “Financial Integration in Europe”, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/ financialintegrationineurope201604.en.pdf. [12]  See, for instance, Pellegrino and Zingales (2014), “Diagnosing the Italian Disease”, available at http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/finance/Diagnosing.pdf. The paper says that the slowdown in Italy’s labour productivity is also associated with its failure to take full advantage of the ICT revolution. [13]  See Jones, B.F (2005): “Age and Great Invention”, NBER Working Paper No. 11359. [14]  See European Commission (2015), 2015 Ageing Report.

The industry has moved ahead: In March, Singtel announced a partnership with its Thai associate AIS to link their mobile wallets up, to enable 1.5 million visitors between Singapore and Thailand to use their mobile wallets at over 20,000 physical merchant acceptance points in both markets. Singtel plans to expand this to other regional associates later in the year. b. More broadly, the banking associations of Singapore and Thailand are exploring the possibility of linking their faster payment systems, PayNow in Singapore, and PromptPay in Thailand. If successful, the benefits of instant, low-cost payments for tourists, migrant workers and professionals will also extend to person-to-person payments and even remittances. c. Earlier this month, when India Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Singapore, he used his RuPay card issued in India to pay for a Madhubani painting on a NETS terminal. In order to address the challenges of cross-border linkages, central banks need to promote the adoption of common international standards and work with industry partners 22.  on all sides in order to ease future integration efforts and pave the way for further partnerships. D. CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES (CBDC) As we talk about cross-border linkages, it would be remiss of me not to touch on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). Benoît Cœuré, our next distinguished keynote 23.  speaker, and I, as co-chairs of the BIS’ CPMI and Markets Committee (MC) respectively, jointly issued a report entitled “Central Bank Digital Currencies”12. Many of you would already have read it.
With the support of the G20 leaders, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) has initiated an impressive number of reform projects. 3 Good progress has been made on many measures. In some important areas, however, decisions have yet to be taken. In line with proposals by the FSB, I believe we need to pursue a dual-track approach to reforming the global financial system, combining preventive measures with measures facilitating the orderly resolution of large international banks in the event of a future crisis. An ounce of prevention We have all been told that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Considering the enormous costs associated with the cure of the current crisis, this holds especially true when it comes to financial stability. Most importantly, we need to strengthen the shock absorbers of the financial system. In the context of banks this means that they have to hold more capital and more liquidity. Strengthened shock absorbers in the form of higher capital and liquidity buffers have several beneficial effects. Bigger buffers enable banks to absorb larger negative shocks without triggering an idiosyncratic, let alone a systemic crisis. Furthermore, bigger buffers ensure that banks themselves bear a larger share of their downside risks. Not only does this reduce the potential burden for taxpayers, but it also creates stronger incentives for the banks themselves to operate prudently.

It was these two “i”s that were responsible for taking us from yesteryear’s hunter-gatherer clans to today’s super-cities.17 Let me start with the first “i” – ideas. These have their source in another, by now familiar, i – imagination. Great leaps forward societally have always had innovation, ideas and imagination at their hub. While fire provided the spark for early homo sapiens, this was only the first in a sequence of technological fireworks. In the mid-18th century, the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the firing of three ideas – James Watt’s steam engine, Richard Arkwright’s water frame and James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny. These inventions occurred at almost exactly the same time (within a handful of years) and in almost exactly the same place (within a few hundred miles of latitudes North of Stockport). This was remarkable, if not coincidental. The second Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century was sparked by a different set of innovations. This time it was sanitation, electrification and internal combustion that lit the fuse on the mass-industrialisation of countries and continents. The third Industrial Revolution of the mid-20th century brought a further wave of innovation, with digitisation, computing and the internet generating a transformation of business and society. Each of these inventions involved a creative leap of imagination. As adoption spread, each became in time a GPT, applicable across sectors, industries and geographies. Like fire, these GPTs then transformed industries, jobs and lifestyles in ways inconceivable to their creators.