Central Banks
Maurice Obstfeld on the trade war’s damage to the monetary system
The former IMF chief economist speaks about Trump’s chaotic economic policies, the erosion of Fed independence and dollar stability, difficult policy trade-offs for central banks, and the threat to the Bretton Woods institutions
Strategic Planning Benchmarks 2025 – model banks analysis
Data breakdowns reveal differences in strategic goals, department structure and salaries
Sarb official warns of risk in RSA sovereign bond holdings
Banks must consider interest rate risk when buying South African government debt, head of stability says
ECB says tariff shocks ‘continue to reverberate’
Stability review says risk of slowdown has “increased markedly”, though banks are better placed than in 2008
Nigeria keeps policy rate at 27.5%
Bank makes second consecutive hold as inflation declines, and cites alarm over trade policy uncertainty
Failure to appoint deputies ‘a step back’ – Montenegrin central bank
Bank will “continue to implement its mandate” despite parliament not approving its candidates
Climate stress tests should involve industry – BdF official
Bottom-up approach enables banks and insurers to capture environmental risks, says Laurent Clerc
Egypt’s central bank expects inflation to halve from 2024 levels
Projection comes ahead of this week’s rate decision
Banks should ‘regularly’ assess clients’ exposure to tariffs – ECB
Rising trade tensions threaten financial stability, bank’s economists say
Syria’s change of printing press reflects wider shift – expert
Reported move of note production from Russia points to an increased willingness to open up to West
Growth in US CRE loans hits 11-year low – research
St Louis Fed study says developers responding to higher costs and lower demand
Muted consumer sentiment may not presage low US growth – study
Kansas City Fed research says people’s pessimism does not automatically mean they will spend less
GSEs not lending as much as they appear to be – NY Fed paper
Much of enterprises’ loans to “real economy” are in fact financed by other types of institution
Central banks must rethink their accounting treatment of money
Biagio Bossone and Massimo Costa call for money to be accounted for as equity for the issuer and as a public asset for the economy
BIS’s Shin points to ‘profound structural shift’ in global markets
‘Hidden’ $113tn FX swaps market reflects sovereign bonds’ ascendency
‘Chat Bankman-Fried’ has poor grasp of governance – study
Bank of Italy paper finds many LLMs would choose to behave in similar way to former crypto exchange owner
Rate expectations influence BoJ’s yield control – paper
Bond purchasing programme less effective when market unsure of future monetary policy path
Riksbank: everyone should be able to pay in cash
Bank welcomes government report calling for payments in physical currency to be facilitated