Central Banks
Krugman adds lustre to $1 trillion coin plan
Proposal to mint a $1 trillion coin to avoid 'fiscal cliff' in US wins Krugman backing and Republican opposition
Filipino deputy gears up for legal battle
Central Bank of the Philippines deputy governor clashes with local businessman over accusations of money laundering
Bank of Portugal suspends staff holiday pay
Board of directors voluntarily waives own holiday pay and cancels that of its staff; board members also agree to take a pay cut for the fourth consecutive year
Netherlands Bank report urges restructuring of mortgage finance
First meeting of the Netherlands Bank’s Financial Stability Committee endorses action to address risks surrounding high mortgage indebtedness
Riksbank board members clash over inflation forecasts
Minutes from December monetary policy meeting show disagreement over impact of 25-basis point rate cut on inflation
Minneapolis Fed research challenges banks’ reliance on short-term debt
Policy paper calls short-term funding as a foundation for efficient payments an ‘artefact of a bygone era’, and suggests reforms to banks’ funding models
Bhutan governor gives banking sector assurances
Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan 2011–12 annual report reveals ongoing liquidity crisis; inflation increases to 13.5%
Fed’s Bullard blasts ‘fiscalisation’ of ECB
James Bullard defends central bank independence while criticising the European Central Bank for mixing monetary and fiscal policy in its outright monetary transactions
Signal-extraction analysed by Latvian paper
Study considers ability of a regularised filter to extract signals from large data-sets
Basel eases final LCR rules but struggles with NSFR
Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision endorses relaxed phase-in rules for final liquidity coverage ratio but the proposed net stable funding ratio looks set to present further problems
Sarb hires head of new international relations department
Legal professor Daniel Bradlow will lead a new department at South African Reserve Bank designed to co-ordinate and direct its participation in international forums
OCC denies swaps push-out protection to non-US banks
Foreign banks have until July to push out derivatives activities after OCC guidance repeats Dodd-Frank drafting mistake
Fed’s Yellen sizes up challenges in derivatives reforms
Federal Reserve vice-chair says initial margin requirements for bilateral derivatives trades are necessary but could place a heavy burden on the industry
Belgian bank survey reports gloomier outlook
National Bank of Belgium survey finds improved financial market conditions are not feeding into the real economy, as respondents again revise down 2013 growth forecasts
Swiss paper considers how GDP is best forecast
Study says forecasting the individual components of GDP does not produce results worthy of the additional effort
Nishimura wants change in macro-prudential focus
BoJ deputy governor says financial regulation should work counter-cyclically against demographic expansion to avoid fuelling property bubbles
RBI’s Padmanabhan sets out plans to disincentivise cheque use
Reserve Bank of India executive director explains efforts to encourage electronic payments, but says improved cheque systems are also being implemented due to high usage
Bundesbank paper analyses drivers of default risk
Study published by the Deutsche Bundesbank finds systematic factors are responsible for up to a quarter of the differences in the default risk of individual banks' credit portfolios
Central Bank of Iceland suspends its foreign currency purchases
Iceland's central bank seeks to mitigate an ‘undesirably large’ depreciation of the Icelandic króna
Fed could stop asset purchases ‘well before end of 2013’
FOMC members express concerns over costs of quantitative easing as the Fed’s balance sheet expands; most members see purchases ending within a year
Bank of Lithuania axes quarter of staff
Lithuanian central bank completes process of streamlining main operations under four branches; cuts 195 employees during the course of a year