samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Therefore, international governance arrangements also matter because they influence how macro-prudential policies interact across national borders. This matters a lot, not least in the Baltic region. In Europe, the ESRB will play an important role in identifying European system-wide risks and recommending policy responses, which will help manage cross-border issues. Sound crisis resolution systems also needed Effective macro-prudential policy would provide a line of defence against the build-up of systemic risks but it is unrealistic to expect it to prevent all serious financial disruptions in the future. It is therefore important to supplement macro-prudential policy with other measures to lessen the impact of financial instability when it occurs. This includes special resolution regimes for financial institutions which alter normal insolvency rules so that priority is given to reducing the negative externalities created when financial institutions fail. In many countries these regimes were completely absent or insufficient to deal with the magnitude and nature of institutions that failed in this crisis. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Despite the lessons from the crisis of the early 1990s, Sweden failed to create permanent resolution powers and so was unprepared in this respect when the recent crisis hit.2 The lack of a legal framework meant that the authorities lacked the legal power and useful guidance on how to deal with failing banks.

Finansinspektionen (Swedish FSA) recently announced that the major Swedish banks should prepare for their capital requirements to rise to the levels proposed in Basel III within the next few years, ahead of the international schedule for implementing Basel III. And I think that we should consider going further than Basel III in other ways in order to reflect the specific vulnerabilities and risks that exist in Sweden, for example by introducing liquidity requirements with specific rules for matching maturities per currency. This also seems to be the Swedish Government’s view. According to the Fiscal Spring Policy Bill of 2011, the government’s intention is – while the  2  For a more detailed discussion of the lessons of the Swedish crisis, see Stefan Ingves and Göran Lind (2008), “Stockholm’s solutions”, Finance & Development, IMF, December 2008. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  transition rules for Basel II still applies – to try different ways of strengthening the capital adequacy rules for systemically important banks beyond what will be required when Basel III is implemented. In addition, the Swedish government recently established a Financial Crisis Committee to review the current regulatory framework and the handling of the recent crisis. It will also propose changes that would reduce the likelihood of future financial crises, by using preventive measures, and allow them to be resolved in an efficient manner. This will be a wide-ranging review that will consider the issues I have briefly mentioned in this speech, as well as many other issues.
BIS Review 160/2009  11  Figure 12 Reserves including swap agreements SEK billion 800 700  800  Swap agreement ECB Swap agreement FED Foreign currency reserve Gold  700  600  600  500  500  400  400  300  300  200  200  100  100  0 Jan-08  0 Apr-08  Jul-08  Oct-08  Jan-09  Apr-09  Jul-09  Oct-09  Source: The Riksbank. To recap, during the financial crisis the Riksbank has used measures such as swap agreements with the ECB and Federal Reserve and borrowing through the Swedish National Debt office to improve the scope for providing the financial sector with loans in foreign currency and to meet its increased international commitments. All in all, the reserves including the swap agreements have increased from around SEK 200 billion to more than SEK 600 billion. During the crisis the Riksbank has at most lent dollars corresponding to around SEK 250 billion. Banknotes and coins, capital, etc. The Riksbank has the monopoly on issuing banknotes and coins in Swedish kronor. The volume of banknotes and coins in circulation is normally the largest item on the liabilities side of the balance sheet. The size of this item is governed entirely by the general public’s demand for cash and it has not been significantly affected by the financial crisis (Figure 13). Banknotes and coins are an important source of funding for the Riksbank.

The Riksbank has therefore on three different occasions (in July, September and October)  BIS Review 160/2009  5  offered loans of up to SEK 100 billion with a maturity of almost one year and at a fixed interest rate, to contribute to bringing down the interest rates households and companies have to pay. On the first two occasions the loan amount was fully subscribed, but on the most recent occasion the amount borrowed was SEK 95 billion. By setting interest rates on Riksbank Certificates and fine-tuning – and as we will come to shortly – setting interest rates on the Riksbank's loans to the banks, the Riksbank has been able to steer the short-term rate throughout the crisis. To summarise, monetary policy has been aimed at keeping inflation close to the target and at the same time dampening the fall in economic activity during the financial crisis. The repo rate has been quickly cut to an extremely low level. The steering of the short-term rates has functioned well throughout the crisis. The normal aim of only steering the shortest interest rate has been supplemented with lending to the banks at longer maturities to be able to also influence interest rates further out on the curve. This means that monetary policy approaches questions regarding financial stability, which I will now discuss. Financial stability Financial stability is the Riksbank’s other main task. Put simply, it is a question of ensuring that the financial system is stable and that the payment system functions.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  As long as the North Sea generates revenues, the value of the fund will rise, laying the basis for a sustainable rise in petroleum revenue spending. 7 Institutional challenges Oil converted into money entails institutional challenges. A crucial question that arose when we discovered oil was whether we had the discipline to refrain from spending all the money at once. In 1983, the Committee on the Future of Petroleum Activity was chaired by former central bank governor Hermod Skånland. He was of the view that it would not be possible to set aside a share of the oil revenues in a fund: “In the light of the prevailing attitudes among both politicians and the wider population, it is difficult to imagine that hundreds of billions will be invested in foreign assets while there are domestic needs that have not been met (...).” 8 For Skånland the solution was simple. If the political system did not manage to set aside the revenues, the oil taps had to be opened very slowly. Wealth management could be carried out by portioning exploration sites in the North Sea. Oil that had not been discovered would burn a hole in the pockets of politicians to a lesser extent than money flowing into the state coffers. Skånland’s scepticism was well founded. Future oil revenues were used as an argument for allowing the central government to run a budget deficit.

Lim Hng Kiang: Dynamism, confidence, collaboration - regional exchanges in the new financial landscape Keynote address by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, Second Minster for Finance and Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at 23rd East Asian and Oceanian Stock Exchanges Federation (EAOSEF) General Assembly, Singapore, 15 April 2004. *  *  *  Mr JY Pillay, Chairman, EAOSEF and Chairman, SGX Mr Toshitsugu Shimizu, Secretary General, EAOSEF Dr Yu-Kyung Kim, Chairman, EAOSEF Working Committee Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen  Introduction A warm welcome to everyone, especially to many of you who have travelled to join us here in Singapore. I understand that the EAOSEF General Assembly was previously hosted by Singapore in 1988. Today, we meet here again, but amidst a global setting that has changed significantly. The world is quite different today. Economies and markets alike, are increasingly intertwined. Globalisation of markets and rapid advances in technology have altered the global marketplace. This is especially so in the world of exchanges and clearing houses, where the competitive landscape is changing rapidly worldwide. Challenges facing exchanges The late 1990s saw a flurry of mergers, alliances and demutualisation among leading exchanges. They were gearing up for a battle with the alternative trading systems. But the threat from alternative trading systems did not materialise. No established exchange has been supplanted. Even in the U.S., which has the highest number of alternative trading systems, none have made significant inroads into the dominance of established exchanges.
And ultimately, where we identify that firms have taken an approach which is not consistent with the aims of the policy, then we will certainly let those firms know. Findings on impact tolerances On impact tolerances it’s clear from our work that, whilst progress has again been made, firms have found this more challenging than identifying IBS. This is in part due to the complexity of defining tolerances for the different regulatory objectives of customer harm or market integrity 3/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  versus safety and soundness, and – for the largest firms – financial stability. For example, we have seen that several of the IBS that have been submitted by firms were accompanied by an impact tolerance for customer harm or market integrity but did not include one for safety & soundness, and an even higher number did not include one for financial stability. These are gaps which we expect firms to fill as a matter of priority. We also noted that the granularity with which firms defined their IBS impacted the tolerances they then defined.

The Bank more than welcomes a more competitive payment landscape. We desire new entrees. We are not in the business of protecting the incumbents. We also do not pick winners and losers. The market will decide those who will prosper. Existing players were given this notice long time ago. Banks especially, will have to reinvent themselves or risk being disrupted. What matters most, from the public policy perspective, is that Malaysian businesses and consumers will benefit from a more vibrant, competitive and efficient ecosystem. We should expect 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  enhanced competition to spur innovation in the products and services that are being offered. Globally, we have seen collaborative strategies emerging as a response to the changing market dynamics. From Scandinavia to Asia, banks in some countries are increasingly competing on a united front. This includes industry partnerships with the payment system operator and fintech firms. In these markets, collaboration on common mobile applications seeks to enable banks to develop more innovative use cases by leveraging on pooled R&D resources, and facilitate mass adoption through common awareness and promotion campaigns. Collaborative efforts enable greater economies of scale through the pooling of resources. Establishing a common platform among banks defrays the cost of testing out new technologies and new ways of doing business. This can go a long way in fostering a culture of experimentation. Collaborative strategies will enhance the probability of success. This is the essence of the merger between MEPS and MyClear. Maintaining the status quo is simply not an option.
From the economic point of view, our past experience teaches us that all these processes entail a high degree of uncertainty which, if not mitigated, may adversely affect inflation, growth, and the stability of financial markets. 1  For our part, we remain ready and available to continue collaborating in whatever the authorities may request of us, as we did in the process that has just ended, always within the limits imposed on us by the legal system and the autonomous and technical nature of our institution. THE MONETARY POLICY REPORT Let me now turn to the contents and projections of our September Monetary Policy Report. I must start by stressing that inflation is on a rising path. The latest available data, for the month of July, shows that its annual variation exceeded 13%. In recent months, increases in food prices —volatile and non-volatile— continued to lead, accounting for almost one third of annual inflation in July. Core inflation —measured by the non-volatile CPI— rose to 10% year-on-year, with a higher contribution from services and non-volatile foods (figure 1). The rise in total inflation again exceeded our expectations. The same as in June, the surprise was concentrated in volatile prices and non-volatile foods. The CPI is rising in a context of increasing inflation expectations. Different sources of information have it that short-term inflation expectations have risen significantly.

On the other hand, the reduction of foreign currency inflows is accompanied by deterioration of the balance of payments indicators and the arising of depreciating pressures on exchange rate, underscoring the role of current account stability on macroeconomic and financial balances at home and the need for taking precautions to guarantee it. World economic environment is characterised by further deepening of economic and financial crises. Curtailing of consumption and investments, under the presence of high rates of public and private debt and underlined macroeconomic imbalances, has made the world economy experience the sharpest economic downturn in last 50 years. The developed countries, USA, Euro-zone, United Kingdom and Japan have followed easing monetary and fiscal policies, aiming to hamper the economic downturn and improve the financial and capital markets situation. Under their impact, the latest data signal relative improvement signs of some macroeconomic indicators. Tensions observed over the previous periods have relaxed and the main financial indicators have shown recovering signs during the last months. In the meantime, the world inflation rates have been falling, owing to low raw materials prices and low use of productive capacities, in the presence of a low aggregate demand and increasing unemployment. The economic activity downturn worldwide was associated with contraction of world trade, tightening of financial conditions and dropping of economic agents’ confidence The direct impact on emerging countries, such as Albania, is the fall of demand for their exports, decline of foreign direct investments and tightening of lending terms in world markets.
15.03.2022  The economic setting following the invasion of Ukraine and the economic policy response Working breakfast with the business sector organised by Hill & Knowlton Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Good morning. I wish to begin by thanking the organisers for this invitation, allowing me to share some thoughts on the current economic situation. An economic setting which, two years on from the onset of the pandemic, is now feeling the brunt of yet another extraordinary shock with potentially extremely negative effects for the world economy. Naturally I am referring to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army 20 days ago. In addition to the extraordinary human drama this poses for the people of Ukraine, the consequences of the invasion, albeit difficult to predict, will foreseeably be global and extremely severe, for both the geopolitical and the economic situation. I will now analyse some of these possible consequences and the most appropriate economic policy response. The economic situation prior to the invasion My starting point for this analysis has to be that, after the strong decline observed in 2020 as a consequence of the pandemic, before the Russian army invaded Ukraine the global economy was on a gradual recovery path, albeit one that was uneven by geographical area, economic sector and population group. Thus, while some economies had managed to reach and even exceed their pre-crisis activity levels by the end of 2021, others continued to suffer from an economic activity gap.

As I mentioned in October before Parliament and have reiterated later on several occasions, it is essential to avoid triggering a spiral of price and cost increases which would only exacerbate the already harmful effects of the current shock. Such a spiral can be avoided through an incomes agreement between firms and workers.4 I would now like to put forward some general principles which, I believe, should help to define it. First, this incomes agreement should involve distributing among firms and workers the diminished income in the national economy vis-à-vis the rest of the world that the recent cost increases entail. I must insist on this point again: the aim is to distribute costs. All the actors involved must sustain a loss. Workers will not be able to maintain their purchasing power in the short term, nor will firms be able to maintain their profit margins. Were workers to bear the full brunt of the adjustment, in the medium term firms would also suffer the consequences in the form of a sharp drop in demand. Conversely, if in the current situation we were to place the full burden of the adjustment on firms, many of them would be forced to close and many others would experience significant losses in competitiveness that would affect their future investment capacity. All of this would ultimately undermine job creation and our citizens’ well-being. Indeed, the latest information available suggests that this sharing of costs between workers and firms is already taking place.
Despite having independent directors and elaborate control structures in place, firms have failed because of decisions by their management and when boards have not effectively performed their oversight role. This has been principally attributed to the lack of sufficient collective knowledge of the board and inadequate competence of individual directors which in turn have led to poor judgements that hampered the ability of the board to rein in excesses at an early stage. Competency gaps generally allow for individuals on boards or from senior management to exert a dominant and undue influence over the decision making process, without being subject to sufficient scrutiny and effective challenge. This occurs when Boards are not able to grasp the risks associated with inordinately complex activities that their institutions are engaged in. This is generally further compounded by the failure to provide an effective countervailing influence to an overzealous risk-taking culture among front-liners who are principally driven by the pressure to deliver short term returns. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Of course, sound processes and structures will continue to have a central role in any good governance framework. This provides the parameters within which decisions can be made. However, the growing significance of behavioural, cultural and ethical issues suggests that governance frameworks must give greater attention to the “softer” aspects of governance. A clear reason for this is that the more challenging and fluid operating environment demands greater exercise of judgement by management.

It should be remembered that one of the main reasons for the simplification of central bank targets in recent years, and for assigning them the main objective of price stability, is that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon and the long-term impact of monetary policy is above all on prices. Its impact on economic growth and employment is therefore generally only temporary. Since central banks broadly speaking have only one instrument, i.e. interest rates, and can therefore only achieve a single long-term macroeconomic goal, it is natural to set price stability as the ultimate monetary goal. This is not to say that price stability is a more important goal than, say, full employment, but simply that monetary policy instruments are inherently better suited to impacting prices. It is pointless to set objectives for monetary policy which it cannot achieve. Through price stability, a forward-orientated monetary policy can contribute towards creating a stable economic environment on which the long-term growth potential of the economy is based. From the above it is clear that the Central Bank’s main task is to achieve the inflation target, and this is what it aims to do. There have been vocal calls recently for the Central Bank to ease its monetary stance in order to soften or even prevent a looming economic contraction. The growth outlook has an impact on the output gap, i.e. the deviation in demand from a level which is consistent with balanced supply and demand for domestic goods and factors of production.
The standards are, without doubt, likely to make the greatest contribution to reducing vulnerabilities and strengthening the resilience of our financial system;  •  Second, the adoption of IFRS is expected to result in higher quality reporting of the health of the financial institutions in Zambia. By so doing, Zambia will benefit from quality international research on accounting and finance issues and also benefit from cross-border comparability of financial performance and condition amongst banks and non-bank financial institutions; and  •  Third, the use of IFRS is expected to play a critical role in the implementation of risk-based supervision of financial institutions in Zambia. Ladies and Gentlemen Allow me, at this juncture, to inform you that in the recent past, the Bank of Zambia has streamlined the supervision of banks and non-bank financial institutions to make it more focused on risks. This is aimed at encouraging banks and non-bank financial institutions to implement sound risk management practices that provide for: •  active oversight by management and the Board of Directors;  •  clearly defined policies, procedures, and delegation of authority;  •  comprehensive risk measurement and reporting systems; and  •  adequate institution of audits and other systems of internal controls. Further, the Bank of Zambia recognises that accounting, auditing, and disclosure play a crucial role in enhancing financial stability.

As I conclude, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the support of other institutions during the preparation of this workshop. To this effect, I wish to thank Standard Chartered Bank, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte and Touché, Grant Thornton, the Zambia Centre for Accountancy Studies and ZICAB Tuition Centre, for having agreed to provide resource persons for this workshop. With these few remarks, it is now my honour and privilege to declare this workshop officially open. I thank you. 2  BIS Review 13/2005