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Europe > Norway

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 72 items for :

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Cover FinTech Notes
Cross-Border Payments with Retail Central Bank Digital Currencies: Design and Policy Considerations
Andre Reslow
,
Gabriel Soderberg
, and
Natsuki Tsuda
Many central banks are currently exploring the possibility of issuing retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). While the primary objective varies between jurisdictions, many central banks consider improved cross-border payments as a potential benefit and previous work has shown that CBDC can help overcome some of the frictions in cross-border payments. CBDC is a safe and liquid asset reducing the number of financial intermediaries and the settlement risk. Designing CBDC systems for cross-border payments is not fundamentally different from tailoring other payment systems. However, the roles and responsibilities might be slightly different in a CBDC system, and the central bank may play a more pivotal role given CBDC’s nature as public money as opposed to commercial bank money. This note draws lessons from ongoing experimentation and research to identify design and policy considerations when developing retail CBDC systems so it may be compatible for cross-border payments. The note focuses on retail CBDC—a CBDC primarily targeting households and non-financial firms—and leaves wholesale CBDC considerations for future work, although many of the discussions are applicable to wholesale CBDC and other forms of money as well.
Keywords:
central bank digital currencies; cross-border payments; fintech; foreign exchange; capital flow management; eNaira; cross-border payment; IMF Library; capital flow management measure; provider restriction; CBDC design consideration; Currencies; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Nonbank financial institutions; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Central Bank Exit Strategies Domestic Transmission and International Spillovers
Christopher J. Erceg
,
Marcin Kolasa
,
Jesper Lindé
,
Haroon Mumtaz
, and
Pawel Zabczyk
We study alternative approaches to the withdrawal of prolonged unconventional monetary stimulus (“exit strategies”) by central banks in large, advanced economies. We first show empirically that large-scale asset purchases affect the exchange rate and domestic and foreign term premiums more strongly than conventional short-term policy rate changes when normalizing by the effects on domestic GDP. We then build a two-country New Keynesian model that features segmented bond markets, cognitive discounting and strategic complementarities in price setting that is consistent with these findings. The model implies that quantitative easing (QE) is the only effective way to provide monetary stimulus when policy rates are persistently constrained by the effective lower bound, and that QE is likely to have larger domestic output effects than quantitative tightening (QT). We demonstrate that “exit strategies” by large advanced economies that rely heavily on QT can trigger sizeable inflation-output tradeoffs in foreign recipient economies through the exchange rate and term premium channels. We also show that these tradeoffs are likely to be stronger in emerging market economies, especially those with fixed exchange rates.
Keywords:
Monetary Policy; Quantitative Easing; International Spillovers; asset purchase; central bank exit strategies; inflation surge scenario; Policy conduct; appendix E. term premium; open economy; Central bank policy rate; Inflation; Unconventional monetary policies; Bonds; Exchange rate arrangements; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Monetary Policy Pass-Through to Interest Rates: Stylized Facts from 30 European Countries
Robert C. M. Beyer
,
Ruo Chen
,
Florian Misch
,
Claire Li
,
Ezgi O. Ozturk
, and
Lev Ratnovski
The extent to which changes in monetary policy rates lead to changes in loan and deposit rates for households and firms, referred to as ‘pass-through’, is an important ingredient of monetary policy transmission to output and prices. Using data on seven different bank interest rates in 30 European countries, different approaches, and the full sample as well as a subsample of euro area countries, we show that a) the pass-through in the post-pandemic hiking cycle has been heterogenous across countries and types of interest rates; b) the pass-through has generally been weaker and slower, except for rates of non-financial corporation loans and time deposits in euro area countries; c) differences in pass-through over time and across countries for most deposit rates are correlated with financial sector concentration, liquidity, and loan opportunities, and d) the effects of pass-through to outstanding mortgage rates on monetary transmission on prices and output are heterogenous across countries.
Keywords:
Monetary Policy Transmission; Monetary Policy Pass-Through; NFC loan rate; pass-through to rate; transmission to output; Deposit rates; Central bank policy rate; Mortgages; Loans; Financial sector; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Micro-Assessment of Macroprudential Borrower-Based Measures in Lithuania
Mantas Dirma
and
Jaunius Karmelavičius
Despite having introduced borrower-based measures (BBM), Lithuania's housing and mortgage markets were booming during the low-interest-rate period, casting doubt on the macroprudential toolkit's ability to contain excessive mortgage growth. This paper assesses the adequacy of BBMs’ parametrization in Lithuania. We do so by building a novel lifetime expected credit loss framework that is founded on actual loan-level default and household income data. We show that the BBM package effectively contains mortgage credit risk and that housing loans are more resilient to stress than in the preregulatory era. Our BBM limit calibration exercise reveals that (1) in the low-rate environment, income-based measures could have been tighter; and (2) borrowers taking out secondary mortgages rightly are and should be required to pledge a higher down payment.
Keywords:
macroprudential policy; borrower-based measures; LTV; mortgage credit risk; lifetime expected loss; probability of default.; calibration exercise; BBM package; modeling mortgage risk; Lithuania's housing market; Mortgages; Loans; Credit risk; Housing prices; Macroprudential policy instruments; Europe; Baltics; Global
Cover Policy Papers
Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust—2023 Borrowing Agreements with the Government of Australia, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Finland, the Banque De France, De Nederlandsche Bank NV, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance Representing the Kingdom of Norway, Sveriges Riksbank, and the Government of the United Kingdom
International Monetary Fund. Finance Dept.
and
International Monetary Fund. Legal Dept.
This paper presents the second set of PRGT borrowing agreements that have been finalized through April 2023 as part of the loan mobilization round launched in July 2021 to cover the cost of pandemic-related lending and support the self-sustainability of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT). Seven of the eight agreements presented use SDRs in the context of SDR channeling. Together these agreements provide a total of SDR 5.1 billion in new PRGT loan resources for low-income countries (LICs).
Keywords:
PRGT Borrowing agreements; PRGT Loans; Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT); Concessional financing; Resource adequacy; PRGT Funding; Contributions; Transparency policy; SDR equivalent; channeling pledge; totaling SDR; PRGT loan disbursement; loan resource; Loans; Poverty reduction strategy; SDR interest rate
Cover IMF Working Papers
Measurement and Use of Cash by Half the World’s Population
Mr. Tanai Khiaonarong
and
David Humphrey
The use of cash for payments is not well measured. We view the value of cash withdrawn from ATMs, or as a share of all payments, as a more accurate and timely measure of cash use compared to the standard measure of currency in circulation, or as a ratio to GDP. These two measures are compared for 14 advanced and emerging market economies. When aggregated, the trend in cash use for payments is currently falling for half the world’s population. Such a measure can help inform policy decisions regarding CBDC and regulatory decisions concerning access to and use of cash.
Keywords:
Cash; payments; access to cash; central bank digital currency; cash use; ATM cash; aggregate Currency value; value of cash; use of cash; Currencies; Monetary base; Purchasing power parity; Stocks; Payment systems
Cover IMF Working Papers
Did Insurers Become Risk-Loving During “Low-for-Long”? The Role of Returns, Ratings, and Regulation
Jeroen Brinkhoff
and
Mr. Juan Sole
European life insurance companies are important bond investors and had traditionally played a stabilizing role in financial markets by pursuing “buy-and-hold” investment strategies. However, since the onset of the ultra-low interest rates era in 2008, observers noted a decline in the credit quality of insurers’ bond portfolios. The commonly-held explanation for this deterioration is that low returns pushed insurers to become more risk-taking. We argue that other factors—such as surging rating downgrades, bond revaluations, and regulatory changes—also played a key role. We estimate that rating changes, revaluations, and search for yield each account for about one-third each of the total deterioration in credit quality. This result has important policy implications as it reestablishes the view that insurers’ investment behavior tends to be passive through the cycle—rather than risk-seeking.
Keywords:
Life Insurance sector; financial stability; credit ratings; bond revaluation; life insurance insurance company; bond portfolio; investment behavior; bond investor; Bonds; Insurance companies; Corporate bonds; Sovereign bonds; Bond ratings; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Norway: 2022 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Norway
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The economy bounced back strongly from the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, and the recovery is well entrenched in 2022. However, risks to the outlook are considerable, given the uncertainty over spillovers from the war in Ukraine, the intensity of the pandemic globally, and in Europe, in particular, and supply bottlenecks. Given the strong fundamentals, Norway is relatively shielded and there are both upside (higher energy prices and export volumes) and downside risks (lower demand from Europe for non-energy exports). The forecast is especially sensitive to where energy prices settle, whether energy supply to Europe will be disrupted, and Norway’s capacity to increase gas supplies to Europe.
Keywords:
liability positions vis-à-vis nonresident; money market rate; inflation pressure; normalising economy; core inflation; Inflation; Mortgages; Climate change; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Usability of Bank Capital Buffers: The Role of Market Expectations
José Abad
Following the COVID shock, supervisors encouraged banks to use capital buffers to support the recovery. However, banks have been reluctant to do so. Provided the market expects a bank to rebuild its buffers, any draw-down will open up a capital shortfall that will weigh on its share price. Therefore, a bank will only decide to use its buffers if the value creation from a larger loan book offsets the costs associated with a capital shortfall. Using market expectations, we calibrate a framework for assessing the usability of buffers. Our results suggest that the cases in which the use of buffers make economic sense are rare in practice.
Keywords:
Capital Buffers; Basel III; Capital Regulation; Financial Institutions; Macropru; valuation model; buffer Usability; market expectation; bank Capital Structure; capital shortfall; Countercyclical capital buffers; Correspondent banking; Loans; Market capitalization; COVID-19; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Climate-Related Stress Testing: Transition Risk in Colombia
Can Sever
and
Manuel Perez-Archila
This paper builds a framework to quantify the financial stability implications of climate-related transition risk in Colombia. We explore risks imposed on the banking system based on scenarios of an increase in the domestic carbon tax by using bank- and firm-level data. Focusing on the deterioration of firms’ balance sheets and the exposure of banks to different sectors, we assess the extent to which such policy shock would transmit from nonfinancial firms to the banking system. We observe that sectors are affected unevenly by a higher carbon tax. Agriculture, manufacturing, electricity, wholesale and retail trade, and transportation sectors appear to be the most important in the transmission of the risk to the banking system. Results also suggest that a large increase in the carbon tax can generate significant but likely manageable financial stability risks, and that a gradual increase in the carbon tax to meet a higher target over several years could be preferable in terms of financial risks. A gradual increase would also have the benefit of allowing for a smoother adjustment to higher carbon tax for stakeholders.
Keywords:
Climate crisis; climate change; transition risk; carbon emission; carbon tax; green economy; environmental taxes; banking stress; stress testing; financial stability; Colombia; D. banking data; risk to the banking system; nonfinancial firm; Carbon tax; Greenhouse gas emissions; Commercial banks; Loans; Global; Caribbean