peter pang : hong kong ’ s retail bond issues opening remarks by mr peter pang, deputy chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, at the signing ceremony for the retail bond issue under hkmc ’ s retail bond issuance programme, hong kong, 18 july 2005. * * * good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the hong kong mortgage corporation, i welcome you all to this signing ceremony for the retail bond to be offered to the public tomorrow. i am pleased to note that since the introduction of the current offering mechanism through placing banks in october 2001, hkmc retail bonds have been warmly welcomed by retail investors. so far, we have issued seven retail bonds for a total amount of hk $ 10. 4 billion. the success of the mortgage corporation ’ s debt issues has been attributed to its high credit ratings ( which are the same as those of the hong kong sar government ) and to the wide range of notes, which can meet the different investment needs of retail investors. the upcoming issue has both hong kong dollar and us dollar denominated notes. this is the first time that the hkmc issues us dollar notes. apart from diversifying its funding sources, the hkmc ’ s issuance of usd retail bonds also serves to provide an additional investment channel for retail investors in hong kong. the minimum subscription amount for our usd bonds is only us $ 5, 000, setting a reasonable threshold to make our debt accessible to a large segment of retail investors. this move by the hkmc to issue usd denominated bonds fits very well into the efforts by the hong kong monetary authority to promote the development of a safe and efficient financial infrastructure for hong kong, based on a multi - currency, multi - dimensional platform. in hong kong ’ s banking system, we have around hk $ 2 trillion in hk dollar deposits. our banks also have the equivalent of over hk $ 1. 8 trillion in foreign currency deposits. about 70 % or us $ 164 billion are us dollar deposits. the loan - to - deposit ratio for hong kong dollar deposits is 87 % ; the equivalent for us dollar is only around 26 %. we reckon that a significant portion of the sizable us dollar deposits is held by retail investors and some would wish to diversify and look for investment products to increase their return. one could of course look for opportunities overseas but, as an international financial centre, hong kong should also try to provide more such investment products locally. in the past there have been very few local issues of us

randal k quarles : goodbye to all that - the end of libor speech by mr randal k quarles, vice chair for supervision of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the structured finance association conference, las vegas, nevada, 5 october 2021. * * * now that business travel has started to pick back up as we emerge from the covid event, a prosaic but insistent problem has reappeared : what to read on a long plane flight. like most of you, i try to get some work done — but, also like most of you, out of an amalgam of security concerns and indolence, i often don ’ t succeed. something must improve the hours, but kant is a little heavy, p. g. wodehouse a little light, and t. s. eliot looks like you ’ re just showing off. so, over the last few weeks, i ’ ve been re - reading joan didion while making my way from point a to point b : slouching toward bethlehem, the white album, and where i was from. as it turns out, joan didion is a particularly apt author to be reading on the way to this conference — not because the conference is being held in las vegas, although her four - page summation of this “ most extreme and allegorical of american settlements ” is a classic. but rather, because a nearly constant theme of her writing is change : how hard it is to recognize that things have changed ; how hard it is to come to terms with it once recognized ; how insistent people can be that surely, they will be ok. and given that introduction, i ’ m sure you have now guessed what i intend to talk to you about today : libor, the benchmark formerly known as the london interbank offered rate. libor was the principal benchmark used to set interest rates for a vast number of commercial loans, mortgages, securities, derivatives, and other products. for a number of years — certainly at least since july of 2017, and really for several years before — it has been clear that libor would end, but some believed it was not clear exactly when libor would end. and, as a result, many market participants have continued to use libor as if that end date would surely be in some indefinitely distant future, as if libor would remain available forever. earlier this year, however, things changed, and changed significantly. two things