Central Banking
People: Wampah becomes Bank of Ghana governor; Iosco replaces chair
Henry Wampah moves from acting to full governor of the Bank of Ghana; Iosco appoints new chair and vice-chairs; Poland gets new management board members; and more
Hungary launches $2bn scheme to boost SME lending
New scheme will lend to commercial banks interest-free to on-lend to SMEs; cash also available to re-finance foreign-denominated loans into Hungarian forints
San Francisco Fed president predicts mid-year asset purchase slowdown
John Williams says economy has shifted into ‘higher gear’ and a substantial labour market improvement could trigger decline in asset purchases
Draghi promises Cyprus bail-out is ‘no template’
Mario Draghi says an established pecking order of ‘bail-inable’ debt will avoid repeating the chaotic resolution in Cyprus; ECB and BoE both hold rates
Kuroda unveils radical plan to end Japanese deflation
Measures aim to double monetary base in two years, with asset purchases no longer constrained by banknote rule; mixed response as questions raised over whether yet more easing will work
BoE economist warns of tendency to ‘overstate’ fiscal multipliers
Matthias Paustian says simple Keynesian models can produce unrealistically high fiscal multiplier when examining fiscal policy at the zero lower bound
IMF strikes €1 billion funding deal with Cyprus
Staff team agrees Fund’s contribution to overall bail-out package; Christine Lagarde praises Cyprus’s ‘ambitious’ programme of reforms
Haldane defends BoE's macro-prudential policy
Andrew Haldane says recent instruction to banks to increase levels of capital will stimulate lending to real economy; academics debate viability of macro-prudential policy
BIS paper urges statistics expansion
Research tells policy-makers to take advantage of the ‘sense of urgency’ that follows financial crises to expand the data they collect, including more comprehensive information on banks
Australia shuffles top managers but governor Stevens stays on
RBA governor Stevens reappointed for three more years, while Wayne Byres moves from Basel Committee to head up prudential regulator Apra
Asean report maps road to financial integration
Key to achieving an Asean Economic Community will be capital account and financial services liberalisation; member states should integrate at their own pace, to avoid EMU-style crises
ECB’s Cœuré damns ‘Panglossian’ view of currency war danger
ECB board member’s comments on ‘dangerously alluring’ monetary easing come a week after Bernanke claimed widespread QE is an ‘enrich thy neighbour’ policy
Canadian deputy says global demand must ‘rotate’
John Murray warns that a lack of co-operation in global rebalancing will only make the situation worse; says global GDP could contract by $6 trillion by 2015
Fed’s Lockhart advocates ‘wait and watch’ approach to asset purchases
Atlanta Fed president acknowledges risks surrounding ever more quantitative easing, but says purchases should not diminish until it is clear the economy has traction
Israel annual report sees growth and inflation fall
Growth rate declines by 1.5% in 2012 but unemployment remains stable; inflation falls below target as schooling and mobile phone prices fall
UK enters new regulatory landscape
UK’s new conduct and prudential regulators take over from the FSA and aim to avoid the failings of their predecessor
Barbadian governor proposes adopting new policy rate
DeLisle Worrell and other senior central bank staff suggest adopting three-month Treasury bill rate as key policy rate, saying it is more practical for small, open economies
IMF calls on Hungary to safeguard central bank independence
The Fund's executive board urges National Bank of Hungary to preserve legal and operational independence; encourages a 'pause' in monetary easing
Bank of Lithuania chief urges banks to consider fee cuts as non-cash payments rise
Report shows sharp increase in volume of non-cash payments in Lithuania; governor Vitas Vasiliauskas says this gives banks room to consider cutting fees
RBA governor sees scope for further monetary easing
Glenn Stevens explains rate hold at 3%, but says there is scope for further easing as growth undershoots target
Turkish banks face larger bill for holding forex and gold
Central bank increases price of holding gold and foreign exchange for Turkish banks who want to diversify reserve holdings away from Turkish lira
Saudi vice-governor warns of 'quantum leap' in money laundering
Abdulrahman Al-Hamidy says countries with weak defences may suffer from capital flight and higher levels of inflation
Danish governor sees further bank ‘resolutions' on the horizon
Nils Bernstein commends mortgage lenders for addressing the sector's challenges without the need for further legislation
Fed doves disagree over FOMC's next move
Boston Fed’s Rosengren sees scope to continue asset purchases at current rate throughout 2013; Cleveland Fed’s Pianalto wants to slow programme down if labour market improvements hold