The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published the Global Monitoring Report on Non-Bank Financial Intermediation 2023. The report presents the FSB’s annual monitoring exercise assessing global trends and vulnerabilities in non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI). The report mainly covers developments in 2022, when most economies experienced a rising interest rate environment in response to inflationary pressures. It describes broad trends in financial intermediation across 29 jurisdictions that account for around 85% of global GDP, before narrowing its focus to the subset of NBFI activities that may be more likely to give rise to vulnerabilities. This year’s exercise includes data enhancements on interconnectedness, sources of funding, and vulnerability metrics. Continue reading…

Luis de Guindos

I will start by giving you an overview of the economic outlook for the euro area before going on to look at how the ECB has adjusted its monetary policy to this outlook. I will then discuss in more detail the transmission of our monetary policy in the current environment and the sources of uncertainty that appear particularly relevant at this stage. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

We recently spoke with Twan Houben about the possible impact of the enormously increased national debt in the United States. Twan Houben is concerned with crisis management, hence his special interest in the phenomenon of national debt on the other side of the Ocean. Then what’s going on? According to Marketwatch, the national debt there currently amounts to 33 trillion US dollars. To put that number into perspective, three years ago that was 23 trillion US dollars. It is not rocket science to calculate that with the increased interest rates in the last period, serious problems can arise if new loans have to be taken out to finance the national debt. But what are the consequences in Europe? Continue reading…

The Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) have on 23 August published a Report on current central counterparty practices to address non-default losses highlighting the need for CCPs to have adequate resources and appropriate tools to address NDLs. CCPs have become increasingly important to the financial system for managing counterparty risk, especially since the introduction of the clearing obligation for standardised OTC derivatives following the 2007–09 global financial crisis. Continue reading…

In 2013, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) established the Official Sector Steering Group (OSSG) with the view of promoting the effective collaboration of the global official sector towards the end goal of successful transition to robust benchmarks, including the transition away from LIBOR. After a decade of preparation, the LIBOR transition has entered its final stage. The end of June 2023 marked the final major milestone in the LIBOR transition with the end of the remaining USD LIBOR panel. Only three of the US dollar LIBOR settings will continue in a synthetic form after June 2023 and are intended to cease at end-September 2024. In addition, reform of other interest rate benchmarks and related transition efforts have either been completed or near their planned, final conclusion. Continue reading…

Inflation has been coming down, with the latest data showing a broad-based decline. But it is still projected to remain too high for too long. In our latest projections, Eurosystem staff expect headline inflation to average 5.4% in 2023, 3.0% in 2024 and 2.2% in 2025. Staff have also revised up their projections for core inflation, which they now see reaching 5.1% in 2023, before it declines to 3.0% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025. This revision is due to past upward surprises in inflation and the implications of the robust labour market for the speed of disinflation. Specifically, we expect both wages and employment to continue growing strongly over the projection horizon, while output growth will be weaker this year and next. In this context, labour productivity growth will be lower and rising unit labour costs are likely to put upward pressure on inflation. Continue reading…

On 29 March, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive making it easier for companies to expand the use of digital tools and processes in EU company law. The proposal aims to facilitate cross-border companies’ operations and to increase business transparency and trust by making more information about companies publicly available at EU level. It will also cut red tape for cross-border businesses, saving around €‎437 million of administrative burden per year, thanks to an EU Company Certificate or the application of the “once-only principle”. The proposal will contribute to further digitalisation of the single market and help companies, in particular, small and medium-sized ones to do business in the EU. Continue reading…

A currency swap line is an agreement between two central banks to exchange currencies. This allows a central bank to obtain foreign currency liquidity from the central bank that issues it – usually because they need to provide this to domestic commercial banks. For example, the swap line with the US Federal Reserve System enables the ECB and all the national central banks in the euro area (Eurosystem) to receive US dollars from the Fed in exchange for an equivalent amount of euro provided to the Federal Reserve. These agreements have been part of central banks’ set of monetary policy instruments for decades.

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Last week, the Commission proposed a comprehensive set of actions to ensure the EU’s access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials. Critical raw materials are indispensable for a wide set of strategic sectors including the net zero industry, the digital industry, aerospace, and defence sectors. While demand for critical raw materials is projected to increase drastically, Europe heavily relies on imports, often from quasi-monopolistic third country suppliers. The EU needs to mitigate the risks for supply chains related to such strategic dependencies to enhance its economic resilience, as highlighted by shortages in the aftermath of the Covid-19 and the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This can put at risk the EU’s efforts to meet its climate and digital objectives.
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