Central Banks
SNB reveals Stabfund portfolio
Swiss National Bank says Stabilisation Fund holds about 4,800 positions in five currencies, bulk of assets backed by real estate
SARB will not be nationalised: Treasury
South African finance minister Pravin Gordhan dismisses talk of placing the central bank under state ownership, condemns shareholders’ tactics to force state takeover
RBA’s Lowe latest to dismiss inflation target hikes
Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Philip Lowe says IMF paper’s suggestion of raising inflation targets not sensible, says higher targets would damage supply side
SEC chief economist quits for private sector
Securities and Exchange Commission head economist James Overdahl will start as deputy head of a Washington consultancy at the end of March
China to keep up T-bill purchases; cautious on gold
State Administration of Foreign Exchange chief Yi Gang says the country will not rely excessively on gold, adds that political relations with US will not affect Chinese treasury holdings
Kansas Fed heralds more stable banking sector
Stress indicator for financial sector shows further decline in February, moving it closer to its long run average
BoE’s Barker on the future of policymaking
Kate Barker draws on her nine years of service at the Bank of England to highlight some of the challenges facing policymakers
BoJ’s Nakamura declares ordinary policy tools redundant
In a high profile speech in Fukuoka last month, Bank of Japan’s Seiji Nakamura tells business leaders that ordinary channels of the transmission mechanism are not working
Weber signals ECB could relax debt rules
Comments come after Austrian governor deemed power of rating agencies unacceptable; paves way for ECB to accept Greek debt even if downgraded
Fund economist: Lost Decade shows need for higher inflation targets
IMF economist Daniel Leigh points to evidence from Japan’s Lost Decade that shows hiking targets would have shorn output losses
ECB names new statistics head
European Central Bank says Aurel Schubert of the Austrian central bank will be the new chief of its statistics directorate
Interview with Takatoshi Ito
Takatoshi Ito, a professor at the University of Tokyo, discusses whether recent comments by Japan’s finance minister undermine the central bank’s independence
A welcome return to money
Central banks’ renewed in interest in the importance of money is to be applauded. But they must also consider the right money measure and how changes should impact policy, Gabriel Stein argues
China to drop dollar peg “sooner or later”: Zhou
Chinese central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan hints the country will soon remove the dollar peg on its currency, analysts see a slow and steady revaluation rather than large one-off move
DSK on Africa’s economic transformation
International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn describes the Road Ahead for Africa at the Kenya International Conference Centre in Nairobi
Credit channel working in Korea
Bank of Korea paper uses data from Korean firms to build on academic research on credit channels
Israel held on low inflation figure
Minutes show Bank of Israel’s Stanley Fischer opted to leave the interest rate for March unchanged at 1.25% as CPI inflation remained low for a successive month
Noyer to chair BIS board
Banque de France governor succeeds Guillermo Ortiz as chairman of Bank for International Settlements’ board
Brussels and Paris push for European monetary fund
Finance ministries of France and Germany begin devising proposals for Europe’s own Fund, body would be geared at removing bailout security net as well as providing help to euro countries