Asia-Pacific
Communications Benchmarks 2022 – executive summary
Key findings of the 2022 report, including the ongoing shift to social media and the impact of Covid-19
South Korean inflation climbs to 13-year high
Central bank concerned about record price rises
Mitigating regulatory risks of mobile payments
Third-party payment providers need to give up data to supervisors to prevent fraud
Vietnam developing crypto legal framework
Country banned crypto as a means of payment in 2017
Central bank of the year: Bank of Korea
South Korea’s central bank was the first developed-world central bank to tighten policy to address inflationary risks
Lifetime achievement: Stanley Fischer
Fischer has had a profound impact on monetary economics and central banking during his prolific career
Initiative: BoT and MAS’s PromptPay-PayNow link
Connecting the two nations’ instant payment systems is empowering citizens
Global markets: HSBC
The bank’s long-term commitment to clients and its wide range of expertise shone in 2021 as central banks navigated the aftermath of the Covid-19 shock
Book notes: Shutdown, by Adam Tooze
A useful, wide-ranging overview, showing how health and economic policies are intimately intertwined with geopolitics
People: Brazil’s Campos Neto comes down with Covid
Acting governor in Lesotho; Auer to head Eurosystem Innovation Hub; and more
Book notes: The cost of free money, by Paola Subacchi
A book worth reading, as it facilitates further discussion on substantial issues, but doesn’t fully address some of the problems it takes aim at
Economics Benchmarks 2021 report – making sense of the modern economy
Covid-19 coloured central banks’ views on the governance of their economics function in the past year, from research topics to forecasting, data, publications and more
Currency Benchmarks 2021 report – executive summary
Perspectives on staffing, circulation, forecasting, note security and composition, outsourcing and more
Covid-19 causes bigger growth forecast errors
But central banks perform better at forecasting inflation
Asean publishes first green taxonomy for financial instruments
“Multi-tier” taxonomy aims to create realistic goals for both rich and middle-income nations
China’s financial market at risk of ‘distress’, RBA report warns
Authorities may have to choose between market discipline and intervention to save Evergrande
Singapore and Malaysia to link payment systems
Regulators see potential of using distributed ledger technology in cross-border payment linkage
Monetary Policy Benchmarks 2021 report – executive summary
Insights into the staff that work on monetary policy, decision-making, tools, transparency and market operations
Thailand and Malaysia invite banks to operate across borders
Banks can operate in host country with greater access and flexibility under Asean initiative
Sustainability: a hallmark of cash
Tod Niedeck, corporate marketing director at Crane Currency makes the case for the sustainability benefits that are inherent in the production of paper banknotes, contrasting this with the environmental difficulties that face plastic banknotes at the end…
Policy-maker votes largely kept secret
Most central banks do not reveal how individual monetary policy-makers vote
BIS to work on cross-border CBDC test with four central banks
Australia, Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia will help create shared DLT platforms
Asset purchase programmes prevalent among advanced economies
But just 17% of emerging market economies said they operate a purchase programme
People: Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund gets new managing director
Korean president nominates head of financial supervisor and EBRD gets new corporate strategy chief