The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met in December indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has been rising at a solid rate. Gains in employment, household spending, and business fixed investment have been solid, and the unemployment rate has stayed low. On a 12-month basis, both overall inflation and inflation for items other than food and energy have continued to run below 2 percent. Market-based measures of inflation compensation have increased in recent months but remain low; survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance.

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Victoria Saporta, Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), has announced that the Bank of Russia has become a member of the IAIS’ Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU) – an international supervisory cooperation and information exchange agreement. Since the first jurisdiction was admitted in June 2009, membership in the IAIS MMoU has grown significantly to now include 65 signatories representing more than 70 percent of worldwide premium volume.

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Representatives from various sub-Saharan African central banks and supervisory authorities, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) met in Cape Town for a High-level Meeting, hosted by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). Continue reading…

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published a Discussion Paper on the implementation in the European Union (EU) of the revised market risk and counterparty credit risk frameworks, i.e. the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) and the Standardised Approach for Counterparty Credit Risk (SA-CCR). This paper discusses some of the most important technical and operational challenges to implement the FRTB and SA-CCR in the EU. The paper aims at providing some preliminary views on how these implementation issues could be addressed and, at the same time, seeks early feedback from the stakeholders on the proposals. The paper also puts forward a roadmap for the development of the regulatory deliverables on the FRTB and SA-CCR included in the CRR2 proposal. The consultation runs until 15 March 2018.
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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) has carried out its work against the backdrop of two significant social-political moments: a growing interest in ethical issues, both in the public and in the private spheres and the im-minent entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018. For some, this may nourish a perception that the work of the EAG represents a challenge to data protection professionals, particularly to lawyers in the field, as well as to companies struggling to adapt their processes and routines to the requirements of the GDPR.

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The experience of the global financial crisis, the post-crisis market environment and changes to regulatory frameworks have had a marked impact on the banking sector globally. The Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS) Working Group examined trends in bank business models, performance and market structure over the past decade, and assessed their implications for the stability and efficiency of banking markets.

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African economies tend to be less integrated into the world economy than those in other emerging regions. But this does not mean that they are immune to shocks from outside the continent. In recent years, global developments such as the rise in global risk aversion during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), the search for yield in its aftermath, and the slump in commodity prices had significant repercussions on economies in Africa. At the same time, economic activity in Africa can also affect other countries, not least through migration flows.
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There is a new technology making waves in the financial markets. And while the name – distributed ledger technology, or DLT – might sound technical, some say it has the potential to completely change the way the financial markets and banking work. So what exactly is it and why is it important to central banks like the ECB?
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A cyber readiness assessment provides effective preparation for companies wanting to avoid the high cost of technology solutions, according to James Weare of Duff & Phelps. Organisations are less than five months away from being subject to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), making it critical that firms have begun to plan for the reporting and systemic changes required to comply.
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