samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
To take it one step further, we are prepared to take a liberal view if an overseas bank wishes to engage in both retail banking through a subsidiary and, in parallel, corporate or private banking that would more appropriately be conducted through a branch. We have had several precedent cases and the HKMA is prepared to consider applications on the basis of the merit of the case. 18. While we maintain an open mind on the use of branches by overseas banks, we have to take steps to mitigate the potential risks arising from cross border contagion. This is particularly important given that Hong Kong is a net provider of funds, i.e. our banks collect a lot more customer deposits than they lend out locally. Hong Kong therefore has to closely monitor intra-group or inter-bank funding that flows from Hong Kong to overseas centres. We have seen in the Global Financial Crisis very clearly how wholesale funding through this kind of cross border intra-group or inter-bank channels may be susceptible to significant shocks in times of market stress. The problem could be exacerbated if the host supervisors, in selfdefence, sought to ring-fence domestic liquidity by blocking the flow of funds at the most difficult time. So the HKMA has been in discussion with banks in Hong Kong on how best they could achieve a better match between liabilities derived from Hong Kong and assets booked in Hong Kong.

At the same time, universal banking also allows some banks, if they have the resources and expertise, to provide corporate or investment banking services to the more sophisticated corporate clients in a wide range of areas such as debt finance, equity fund raising, mergers and acquisitions and other advisory services. 5. Universal banking also makes a great deal of sense from a bank’s point of view. Under this model, a bank will be able to better serve the diverse needs of its customers, and generate fee and commission income which is not subject to the same kind of credit, maturity and other risks associated with income derived from lending and trading activities. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Customers need the services and banks provide them: it does look like a perfect match, doesn’t it? As always, perfection rarely exists in the real world and there is a catch inherent in this one-stop financial supermarket model. This is related to the different ways in which customers perceive a bank as a deposit-taking institution versus a brokerage house or investment bank. 6. Because of the easy access and convenience universal banks offer, they tend to attract customers along a very wide spectrum of financial sophistication and risk appetite. Some of these customers go to banks to conduct very basic banking transactions, such as cash withdrawal, rolling over fixed deposits, remittances, applications for loans, getting cheque books and credit cards etc.
As expected, today – a good six months after the new note was issued – around two-thirds of the eighthseries 50-franc notes originally in circulation have been exchanged. The next denomination to be released will be the 20-franc note. It will be presented at a press conference on Wednesday, 10 May 2017, and the first notes will be issued one week later, on 17 May 2017. The new 20-franc notes will be put into circulation continuously from that date onwards. Issuance of the third denomination, the 10-franc note, is planned for autumn 2017. We will announce the exact date in due course. Page 3/3

To illustrate my points, let me use the work that the Bank of Thailand has been engaging with the financial institutions during the past couple of years. We have provided guidelines to improve corporate governance within the Thai financial sector to complement the on-going change within the corporate sector. Bank directors are now required to have no more than 3 directorships in other profitseeking institutions, so that they will have more time to carry out the required duties, as directors should do. Before, 82 directors did not qualify, but 60 of those have now complied. And for the rest, arrangements were made for them to observe the guideline. To improve internal management, we ask major shareholders not to vote for the independent directors so that minority shareholders are better represented on the board. Audit committees are now a requirement and many banks now have nomination and compensation committees to reduce the power of the major shareholders. Most also have risk management committee or, at least, asset and liability management committee. To further increase transparency, commercial banks now have to announce at the end of each month their NPL level, penalties and fines imposed by the authorities, as well as the amount of their related lending. By year-end, we will launch the Director's Handbook for the financial community and further encouraging increased transparency of appointment and compensations. Of course, we cannot change others without changing ourselves at the Bank of Thailand.
The tide will turn  An orderly reversal of the euro’s exchange rate will take place as a result of a triple narrowing. •  Narrowing of the growth differential between the United States and the euro area. This is because the current extraordinary growth rate of the United States is probably not sustainable in view of the widening of the external deficit. Euro area growth is well balanced, while the US economy is affected by imbalances. This will be progressively taken into account by the markets. •  A narrowing of the interest-rate differential as a consequence of the narrowing of the growth differential. •  Narrowing of the “restructuring differential” between the United States and the euro area economies. It seems to us that although corporate restructuring in Europe was lagging behind the United States a few years ago, we are now observing a catching-up process. This leads me to my last point: the undertaking (and speeding up) of structural reforms is a major condition for the euro to be a complete success. 4. The conditions for the complete success of the euro: sound macroeconomic policies and structural reforms  In this regard, the Lisbon European Council meeting last month can be viewed as a further important step towards the necessary medium-term strategy for structural reforms in the Union. The labour market has become much more flexible in the past few years in Europe.

As the country with the largest circulation of banknotes and coin in the bimetal system, France played a key role in this complex system at the international level. Things are rarely as simple as they seem. The 19th century is often depicted as a time when the international system was based on a single metal currency. However, this was not the case. Until 1873, it worked with a complex bimetal system, based on gold and silver. Let me turn now to today’s financial and monetary world. I will first present the Banque de France view on gold and follow with comments on the euro after 18 months of its existence. I. Gold  A. The Banque de France’s view on gold is based on three main pillars:  •  We are in favour of gold holding  •  We are against gold selling  •  We have a very prudent and conservative approach to gold lending  1. Gold holding  The Banque de France is a major gold holder (with more than 3,000 tons). The creation of the single currency has in no way modified our policy and motivations for holding gold, which remains in our view an important reserve asset. Let us review the reasons why central banks want to hold gold. What is the rationale for holding gold, a non-interest bearing asset, given that there is no more official role for gold since the collapse of the gold exchange standard?
12 This set a medieval financial accelerator in train (about 750 years before Ben Bernanke coined the term) 13 by providing an alternative to storing one’s wealth in silver coin (prone to being whisked away by the King). This led to a reduction in the demand for silver money balances. An increase in money velocity would have followed and with it, all else being equal, price inflation until the transactions demand for silver had risen sufficiently to equal its supply. At the very least, the existence of an alternative store of wealth provided an environment in which money velocity could take off, were it to be nudged in that direction. One possible nudge was the anticipation of the re-coinage of 1204. 14 Re-coinages were good for the King because he benefitted from the seigniorage of the re-minting fee. They were bad for cash holders both because of the re-minting fee and because they had to exchange their clipped coins for what they were actually worth, rather than their face value (a medieval haircut – some of which were appalling). Consequently, there was a strong incentive not to be the one holding the old-issue coins when the music stopped. 15 So to sum up: a fiscal squeeze exacerbated by accelerating inflation, combined with monarchical ambition and incompetence to stretch and then break relations with the barons.

They characterise Magna Carta as a pragmatic political document that was a product of its time, including the difficult economic circumstances that then prevailed. As usual with historical arguments, the answer lies somewhere in between. In what follows, I will spend a few moments on the pragmatic element not only because it plays to my comparative advantage as an economist but also because it ultimately underscores the foundational character of the document itself. The enduring legacy of Magna Carta is how its strictures on unconstrained power are reflected in our systems of political and economic governance. I will conclude that both the constitutional and pragmatic perspectives are relevant to modern central banking and the current conduct of monetary policy. Specifically, the costs of inflation were among the key economic catalysts of Magna Carta, and its core constitutional legacy – namely the importance of delegated authority, with clear lines of public accountability – is at the heart of the Bank of England’s institutional arrangements. In the spirit of Magna Carta, the Bank of England has been given a great responsibility: to deliver monetary stability for the good of the people of the United Kingdom. Our goal, the 2 per cent inflation target, is set by the Government, and we operate under constrained discretion in its pursuit. 1. The economic and political context  Where did Magna Carta come from?
More recently, the Central Bank has encouraged banks to draw up Business Continuity Plans (BCPs), focusing on their core banking solutions, back-up systems and Disaster Recovery Sites (DRS). The Central Bank, being the owner and operator of the core payment systems, is keen to ensure that the banks have put in place adequate processes and systems to deal with any disruption to core banking and payment services. It took a considerable length of time to convince banks of the importance of having BCPs, back up systems and DRSs. Evidently, the establishment of these systems has given confidence to the customers that banks are in a position to deal with emergencies that could occur at any time. 5.2 With the advancement of IT and customers becoming comfortable with new technology, they demand greater convenience, reduced transactions costs and higher quality banking products and services. The reliability of the products and services are assured to a large extent by the attention paid to BCPs by banks. While these have increased productivity in the banking sector, banks have had to spend more money for the acquisition and installation of new IT systems. 5.3 Another risk faced by the banking industry due to its becoming a major user of technology, is the risk of failures to systems. The fact that “hackers” can get into banking IT systems, with or without inside help, demonstrates the magnitude of the problem. Specially, plastic card operations have been plagued with such risks.

Risks, costs, past failures and other factors may have built up levels of apprehension. Yet, some have committed to replace core systems, while others have invested in extensions of all systems for short-term relief. 9.1.3 Many banking services are now delivered over the Internet through mobile phones and facilities at supermarkets. Two decades ago, a bank operated with a simple set of solutions for savings, cheque clearing and lending. Today, a bank may be offering well over 100 products, but the processes and technologies underlying such advances have often been implemented in piecemeal fashion. The result has been a dramatic increase in complexity that has caused many bank efficiency ratios to stagnate. From an IT perspective, core banking systems have come to resemble an intertwined cats cradle. During different business cycles, banks world over tend to be complacent. When profits are increasing and the economic environment is good, banks may think “Why should we change the core banking systems at this stage, when the existing system is running without much trouble?” If regulators and vendors put pressure on them, they may ask the question “Haven’t we heard this story before?” But it is necessary to remember that sooner or later and those who have not attended to as yet, will be required to replace or integrate their core banking systems, given the rapid changes that are taking place in banking services as well as IT developments. 9.1.4 A core banking system replacement as part of a business transformation is not a minor task.
Generating an expansion in net exports in order to counterbalance the necessary increase in savings and to offset any reduction in the demand for financial services exports then requires a real depreciation of the currency. This was achieved by a fall of a quarter in the trade-weighted value of the nominal sterling exchange rate between the start of the crisis and the end of 20081. Although the impact of this depreciation on net exports initially seemed rather disappointing, recent revised data from the ONS now suggest that the impact on net exports has been roughly in line with that seen after previous large movements in the exchange rate (Chart 4). The third force is the loss in output and income associated with the financial crisis. Output presently lies almost 15 per cent below where it would have been if it had continued to grow in line with its pre-crisis trend. Even if that shortfall does not prove to be permanent, the  1  It is worth emphasising that the bulk of this fall occurred before the MPC cut Bank Rate sharply in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and subsequently embarked on quantitative easing. It cannot therefore be attributed to lax monetary policy. Sterling has been broadly stable since the beginning of 2009.

Last Thursday’s agreement represents an important element of a satisfactory resolution to the euro area crisis, but there are still many details to be worked out. Moreover, the announcement by the Greek government that it plans to hold a referendum on its package has injected additional uncertainty. And, even if the 27 October agreement is eventually implemented, the peripheral economies of the euro area will still be faced with substantial adjustment challenges, including the need to rebalance their economies and improve their competitiveness. So the strains in the euro area seem likely to continue for some while yet. The second factor behind the unexpected slowing in growth is the substantial rise in energy and other commodity prices during the latter part of 2010 and first part of this year, associated with strong growth in the emerging economies as well as interruptions to the supply of oil as a result of geopolitical developments in the Middle East and North Africa. UK inflation over the past year has consequently been around 1½ percentage points higher than the central view in our November 2010 Inflation Report, with the twelve-month rate reaching 5.2% in September. That has added to the squeeze on real household incomes already taking place as a result of earlier increases in energy and other import prices, together with the increase in the standard rate of VAT to 20 per cent.
Bail-in capacities of French banks for instance have significantly improved over the last decade, reducing the likelihood of a bail out – which would in any case be subject to the rules of the Banking union’s resolution pillar. And finally, the possible negative impact on the financial stability outlook will crucially depend on the strength and sustainability of the recovery underway and the policies which will be implemented to preserve public debt sustainability. So let me stop there for these initial remarks. Thank you for your attention. 1 www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-bulletin/articles/2021/html/ecb.ebart202103_02~6612ab7923.en.html  4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches

With hindsight, one of the lessons of the last decade is that structural reforms should not focus exclusively on increasing “competitiveness” – defined as lowering costs and boosting exports. They should also focus on raising productivity and modernising our economies. But what is unique about NGEU is that it combines funding for investment with future-oriented structural reforms focused on making our economies greener and more digital. This combination is critical to ensure that the crisis does not leave lasting scars. The number of people who will need to find a different job by 2030 has risen by 25% in advanced economies due to the pandemic.4 We know that strong recoveries are key for people to move into new jobs quickly5 and the focus of NGEU on productive investment should provide a sustained boost to growth. Green spending is estimated to have a multiplier two to seven times higher than non-green projects.6 At the same time, targeted structural reforms should help ensure that freed-up resources are redirected to green and digital activities, and that demand flows towards the jobs and sectors of the future. The 22 recovery and resilience plans that have been presented to the Commission so far look encouraging. All of the largest economies are planning to dedicate at least 20% of their spending to digitalisation and around 40% to the energy transition and green infrastructure.7  Conclusion Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.
As I interpret matters, it seems as though advocates of the strategy of “cleaning up afterwards” have partially modified their view, primarily because the potential profits of limiting bubbles seem to be greater than previously estimated. It seems to be an increasingly accepted view that a central bank should at least do something when it suspects that a credit-driven imbalance is building up on the property market. 9 This is not necessarily a matter of increasing the policy rate, even if it now seems to be increasingly accepted that this can also be considered. 7  See, for example, Donald L. Kohn, “Monetary Policy and Asset Prices Revisited”, speech held 19 November 2008, Federal Reserve Board. 8  Stefan Ingves, “Housing and Monetary Policy: A View from an Inflation-Targeting Central Bank”, in Housing, Housing Finance and Monetary Policy, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Jackson Hole Symposium, 2007. 9  See, for example Alan S. Blinder, “How Central Should the Central Bank Be?”, Journal of Economic Literature XLVIII, March 2010. BIS Review 68/2010  15  Can time-varying regulations prevent a credit-driven property boom? I mentioned earlier that an international discussion is underway regarding the more timevaried application of regulations within the framework of macroprudential policy. Even if this discussion primarily addresses the prevention of risks to financial stability, it is conceivable that the time-varied application of regulations may also be used to prevent a credit expansion that may destabilise the real economy, without any threat to financial stability being perceived.

The situation one would like to avoid is one in which the upturn is characterised by exaggerated optimism and excessive risk propensity. In such a situation, the fall can be dramatic when something causes this sentiment to turn. Prices fall, participants become more pessimistic and risk propensity decreases among both lenders and borrowers. This may result in an extended period during which participants consolidate their balance sheets, consumption and investment develop weakly, and lending becomes exaggeratedly restrictive. Fluctuations in property prices and credit volumes can thus amplify the fluctuations of the real economy. A fall in prices or expectations of such a fall may also lead to financial instability with possible consequences in the form of increased uncertainty, a credit crunch and stresses on central government finances. This is because a credit-driven imbalance can create a significant credit risk if the banks have filled the asset side of their balance sheets with loans based on inflated prices and with high loan-to-value ratios. The credit risk also depends on the manner in which borrowers’ obligations in the event of a default will be regulated, that is to say whether the bank will be able to claim only the actual collateral or whether it will also have a claim on the remaining loan. An individual bank has no reason to take consideration of anything other than the risk to its own balance sheet and can, in general, ignore the effects on the real economy and financial stability: these are external effects.