BISness

Claudio Borio offers a historic perspective on the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy to better understand the challenges facing the global economy today, and draw some lessons for the future. Read more.

Hyun Song Shin explains the main elements of the unified ledger and how tokenisation can be a game changer for the monetary system. Read more. 

Over the past 40 years, income inequality within countries has risen inexorably. A book by BIS authors explains why this has profound implications for the design of macroeconomic stabilisation policies.

In a speech, Agustín Carstens argues that central banks need to think big to reap the greatest benefits from innovation. He discusses the options with Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Read the speech here: https://www.bis.org/speeches/sp230222.htm

How did the 2022 turmoil in the crypto market affect small, retail investors compared with large or insider investors? Was there any spillover to traditional financial markets?  Jon Frost, Head of Economics for the Americas, and Giulio Cornelli, Senior Financial Market Analyst, provide some answers based on their recent BIS Bulletin Crypto shocks and retail losses, co-authored with Sebastian Doerr and Leonardo Gambacorta. 

Andrew McCormack, Head, BIS Innovation Hub Singapore Centre, discusses Project Nexus, a blueprint for connecting multiple national payment systems into a cross-border network that could enable international payments to happen almost instantaneously. He talks about the successful completion of Phase II, which involved building a working prototype to link three established payment systems, and looks forward to Phase III, which will see five Southeast Asian countries work towards connecting their domestic payment systems. He also talks about the challenges facing the project as well as its ultimate aims. He touches upon innovations in the financial space and looks back on the major insights he gained in his time as head of the Singapore Centre. 

Global green financing has grown 100 times over the past decade. And yet, it is still surrounded by considerable controversy – why is it so? Bank of France’s Jean Boissinot – a leading expert of green finance in the central bank community – explains what green finance can (and cannot) do for environmental sustainability. He also highlights the role and achievements of the Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of central banks and supervisors working together on environmental and climate issues

Cecilia Skingsley looks at her first six months as Head of the BIS Innovation Hub, the path of innovation on the public sector and the role of central banks and the private sector in providing financial services in a rapidly changing world. She says that central banks have to follow and understand not only cyclical changes, but also structural changes, which “can be slow and take a long time, such as globalization (…), or be very rapid and disruptive, such as the pandemic.” She also talks about diversity and being the first policymaker to propose a digital currency in her native Sweden.

Claudio Borio and Hyun Song Shin summarize the March 2023 Quarterly Review and answer journalists' questions about market developments and the economic outlook. 

Central banks face difficult trade-offs when deciding the speed and size of interest rate hikes to counter inflation, as well as how long to keep the policy rate at the peak. Egon Zakrajšek, Senior Adviser in the BIS Monetary and Economic Department, discusses the benefits and risks of “front-loading” rate increases, drawing from a recent BIS Bulletin he co-authored with Paolo Cavallino, Giulio Cornelli and Peter Hördahl.