Financial Stability Challenges Research Articles

Is the time ripe for helicopter money? Growth impact and financial stability risks of outright monetary transfers

We study the effectiveness of helicopter money, once a thought experiment that is now a feasible option given new digital technologies. We consider the effects of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) from a theoretical point of view, by means of a stock-flow consistent model of a growing open economy. We compare the effectiveness of this tool with that of traditional fiscal and monetary policies. We find that issuing a CBDC by expanding the central bank's balance sheet can have a durable impact on GDP and crucially, it allows for the activation of a new transmission channel, which depends on the sensitivity of investment and of the interest rate to firms’ leverage. But it might reduce the demand for bank deposits, and even more crucially for bank loans, thus creating challenges for financial stability.

Impact of COVID-19 on Financial Health in India: Managing Financial Health in Challenging Times

Abstract India is at a crucial juncture in its fight against COVID-19 pandemic, which is inflicting unprecedented health, economic, and financial stability challenges. The first priority is, of course, to save lives. But the necessary containment measures to limit the spread of the virus are causing a dramatic decline in eco-nomic activity and policymakers are worried about how to fight the virus and minimise its impact on the economy. There are no easy answers. In addition to containing the spread of the disease and support those who are affected, policymakers must be prepared for the long-term challenges. At present scenario, it is difficult to evaluate all ill-effects of covid-19 that has on individual and economy. But to meet basic requirements and to be ready for this upcoming uncertain time, it is very essential to assess the immediate financial health to frame various policies and strategies to deal with situation in near period. All our financial decisions and activities influence our financial health now and in the future. The main objective of present study is to explore the financial health at individual level and at country level in India. The findings would be useful for India's policy makers to maintain the parallel expansion of financial, fiscal and welfare measures to improve the financial health of India and to strengthen the financial health of Individuals to fight against Covid-19.

Republic of Korea

The FSSA was prepared by a staff team of the IMF for the Executive Board’s consideration on Friday, March 27. The staff report reflects discussions with the Korean authorities in September and December 2019 and is based on the information available as of end June 2019. It focuses on Korea’s near and medium-term financial stability challenges and policy priorities and was prepared before COVID-19 became a global pandemic and resulted in unprecedented strains in global trade, commodity and financial markets. It, therefore, does not reflect the implications of these developments and related policy priorities. Staff is closely monitoring the situation and will continue to work on assessing its impact and the related policy response in Korea and globally.

Financial Integration, Banking Supervision and Sustainability of the Western Balkan Countries

Purpose: This paper examines the need of financial integration of Western Balkan countries as the main indicator of the region’s economic growth. Design/Methodology/Approach: We provide an overview in order to explain what the financial system in the region is. Primarily we concentrate in the banking sector and the non-performing loans in the region. They require attention and standardization of regulatory classification. By establishing a regional platform it would be of additional value and would help overcome the limited visibility in some of the countries. Findings: Currently the challenges for financial stability in the Western Balkan area comprise non-performing loans, low capital adequacy and moderate growth of credit in the economy. The banking sector is reducing the debt due to required financial stability measures of the European banking authorities. As these countries integrate their financial institutions and markets into the European financial system, on the path towards harmonization of national and European legislation, cooperation between financial entities in the Western Balkans becomes very important. The Western Balkan countries are in a different stage of development of banking sustainability and supervision and because of that there is a need for more integration with the European Banks and the respective regulators to ensure an adequate banking regime. Practical Implications: The article highlights the fact that Western Balkan countries need to intensify their reforms to build banking sustainability in order to meet the criteria for EU membership. Originality/Value: With this article we show that the Western Balkan countries in their integration processes must first align their local and European legislation and requirements.

Paradigms of the New Economy and Challenges of Financial Stability in Georgia

The paper deals with the impacts of the traditional economic environment, explores the dynamics of population welfare and social inequality. Recommendations on the need and perspectives for the formation of new economic are proposed.

Interest Rates and Insurance Company Investment Behavior

Life insurance companies, the largest institutional holders of corporate bonds, tilt their portfolios towards higher-yield bonds when interest rates decline. This tilt seems to be primarily driven by an increase in duration rather than credit risk and insurers do not seem to increase the credit risk of their bonds as interest rates decline. Moreover, the duration gap between their assets and liabilities deviates from zero for extended periods of time in either direction. These patterns cannot be explained by incentives to reach for yield. We propose a new model of duration-matching under adjustment costs that conforms with these patterns and test other implications of this model. The gradual duration matching poses financial stability challenges distinct from reaching for yield.

Financial Stability Assessment for EU Candidate Countries and Potential Candidates

This paper reviews and assesses financial stability challenges in countries preparing for EU membership, i.e. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. The paper mainly focuses on the period since 2016 (unless the analysis requires a longer time span) and on the banking sectors that dominate financial systems in this group of countries. For the Western Balkans, the paper analyses recent trends in financial intermediation, as well as the two main challenges that have been identified in the past. Asset quality continues to improve, but the share of non-performing loans is still high in some countries, while regulatory, legal and tax impediments are still to be resolved in most cases. High unofficial euroisation is a source of indirect credit risk for countries with their own national legal tender, which calls for continued efforts to promote the use of domestic currencies in the financial system. At the same time, banking systems seem less prone to financial stress from maturity mismatches than certain EU peers. These risks are met with a solid shock-absorbing capacity in the Western Balkans, as exemplified by robust capital and liquidity buffers. Turkey experienced a period of heightened financial stress during 2018 and, while its banking system appears to have sufficient buffers to absorb shocks overall, significant forex borrowing of corporates and high rollover needs of banks in foreign exchange on the wholesale market constitute considerable financial stability risks. JEL Classification: F31, F34, F36, G15, G21, G28

Banking in a Steady State of Low Growth and Interest Rates

A prolonged low-interest-rate environment presents a significant challenge to banks and is likely to entail major changes to their business models over the long-run. Lower returns to maturity transformation in the face of flatter yield curves and an inability to offer deposit rates significantly below zero combine to compress bank earnings in this environment. Smaller, deposit-funded, less diversified banks are hurt most, increasing consolidation pressures and reach-for-yield incentives, presenting new financial stability challenges. To the extent that such an economic environment reflects a new, steady-state with lower equilibrium growth driven by population aging and slower productivity growth, lower credit demand is likely to drive banking toward provision of fee-based, utility services.

United Republic of Tanzania: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the United Republic of Tanzania

Tanzania’s bank-dominated financial sector is small, concentrated, and at a relatively nascent stage of development. Financial services provision is dominated by commercial banks, with the ten largest institutions being preeminent in terms of mobilizing savings and intermediating credit. Medium-to-small banks rely systematically more on costlier, short-term, interbank financing and institutional deposits and have markedly higher operating costs. These structural features underpin financial stability challenges which are significant. Bank asset quality has deteriorated sharply in recent years, and under-provisioning is significant, belying the apparently comfortable capital cushions. Credit growth has fallen precipitously, corporate debt loads have risen, and their cash flows are weak. Dollarization of bank balance-sheets raises the possibility of solvency stress under shocks being exacerbated by funding liquidity pressures, especially at smaller banks.

“New” monetary policy instruments and exchange rate volatility

Turkish economy has been suffering from rises in financial flows since the last two decades that these flows have raised financial stability challenges across emerging economies including Turkey. Regarding the ability of the central banks to decrease the financial risks including volatile exchange rate, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has designed and implemented a new policy mix. In this study, we investigated the effect of new policy instruments (IRC, RRR and ROM) on the volatilities of US dollar, euro, British pound and basket rate for Turkish economy between January 2, 2002 and December 9, 2014 by using ARMA-GARCH, ARMA-EGARCH and SWARCH models. From the estimation results, we could not reach enough evidence that the IRC and RRR instruments could decrease the volatilities of exchange rates under investigation while the ROM instrument was successful, especially on US dollar and basket rate. We also found strong evidence in favour of asymmetric volatility, indicating that the positive shocks led to greater exchange rate volatility than negative ones.

Financial Stability Challenges in EU Candidate and Potential Candidate Countries

This paper reviews financial stability challenges in countries preparing for EU membership, i.e. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Iceland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. The paper has been prepared by an expert group of staff from the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) in which experts from EU candidate and potential candidate country central banks also participated. The paper finds that near-term challenges to financial stability primarily relate to credit risks from the generally weak economic dynamics in combination with already high non-performing loan burdens in many banking systems, especially in the Western Balkans. In the medium-term, challenges to financial stability stem from indirect market risks to banks related to foreign currency lending as well as lingering exposures to funding risks, with Western Balkan economies again appearing as relatively more vulnerable. Looking further ahead, the paper highlights that the magnitude of the challenge to reach a JEL Classification: F31, F34, F36, F41, G21, G28

THE NUMBER OF FINANCIAL REGULATORY AUTHORITIES AND FINANCIAL STABILITY: CROSS-COUNTRY EXPERIENCES

This paper attempts to provide evidence whether or not the unification of regulatory institutions for different types of financial sector creates challenges for financial stability. From a sample of 91 countries that provide data on the financial unification index and the central bank involvement index, the empirical results reveal that higher financial unification index or the convergence toward a single supervisory institution outside the central bank, in order to control three different sectors (banking, insurance, and securities), is detrimental for financial stability. However, this finding only holds for developed countries, but dissapears for less developed countries. In parallel, the central bank involvement in financial sector supervision has no impact on financial stability in both developed and less developed countries. Keywords: Supervisory Regimes, Financial Sectors, Financial Stability JEL Classification: G18, G21, G28

Financial Integration and Growth in Croatia

In this paper we analyze the effects of international capital flows and institutional change on growth in Croatia. The impact of financial integration is assessed by looking at the determinants of real convergence of income per capita to that of the euro area and the institutional change is viewed as a result of the process of accession to the European Union. Our conclusions are that total factor productivity and capital accumulation played the main roles in generating economic growth in Croatia. That was an immediate consequence of the liberalization of the capital account, which was a prerequisite for starting negotiations with the European Union. Global financial crisis is affecting and will continue to affect all countries but particularly hard hit will be the economies whose growth has become dependent on foreign capital This paper also assesses the macroeconomic and financial stability challenges that Croatia and other emerging European economies are likely to face in the global financial turmoil.

Financial Stability Challenges for EU Acceding and Candidate Countries: Making Financial Systems More Resilient in a Challenging Environment

This Occasional Paper reviews financial stability challenges in countries preparing for EU membership with a candidate country status, i.e. Croatia (planned to accede to the EU on 1 July 2013), Iceland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey. It follows a macro-prudential approach, emphasising systemic risks of financial systems as a whole. After recalling that some EU candidate countries went through a pronounced boom-and-bust credit cycle in recent years, the paper identifies current challenges for the bank-based financial sectors as mainly stemming from: (i) high or rising domestic credit risk; (ii) unhedged borrowing in foreign currencies; and (iii) strains related to the euro area debt crisis, which is impacting the EU candidate countries via a number of channels. The main channels of transmission of the euro area debt crisis to the EU candidate countries operate via: (i) trade and foreign direct investment; (ii) an increased market focus on sovereign risk; and (iii) “deleveraging”, e.g. via a decline of external funding to local subsidiaries of EU parent banks. A macro-stress-test exercise performed by the national authorities of the EU candidate countries in February 2012 suggests that large capital buffers can absorb a shock to credit quality stemming from a drop in economic activity in the EU and renewed strains from the euro area debt crisis. With respect to supervisory practices, the paper finds that the EU candidate countries have made good progress, but some gaps with respect to international and EU standards remain.

Financial Stability Challenges in Microfinance - Drivers of the Pre-Crisis Credit Boom

This paper uncovers the drivers of the credit boom in microfinance in developing and emerging market countries before the onset of the financial crisis. We find that key macroeconomic variables as well as credit growth in the traditional banking sector are significant factors explaining microfinance credit growth. Moreover, the ability of microfinance institutions to secure external funding beyond deposits and equity is a key variable determining the size of the boom. Thus, our results suggest that microfinance is subject to similar financial stability challenges that have been observed in the traditional banking sector. We also find robust evidence that commercialization contributes to the boom as microfinance banks experience more rapid growth than non-governmental institutions. By contrast we only find weak evidence that credit expansion is more pronounced in more difficult and underdeveloped microfinance markets.

Financial Stability Challenges in EU Candidate Countries - Financial Systems in the Aftermath of the Global Crisis

This paper reviews financial stability challenges in the EU candidate countries: Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. It follows a macro-prudential approach, emphasising systemic risks and the stability of financial systems as a whole. The paper recalls that the economies of all three countries experienced a recession in 2008-09 and shows how this slowed the rapid process of financial deepening that had been taking place since the beginning of the last decade. The deteriorating economic and financial conditions manifested themselves, first and foremost, through a marked deterioration in asset quality. These direct credit risks were compounded by the transformation of exchange and interest rate risks through a widespread use of foreign exchange-denominated or indexed loans and variable or adjustable interest rate loans. Moreover, funding and liquidity risks also materialised to some extent, although fully fledged bank runs were avoided, and none of the countries experienced a sharp reversal in external financing. Overall, the deterioration in asset quality has so far been managed well by the banking systems of the candidate countries, facilitated by large capital buffers, pro-active macro-prudential policies pursued by the authorities both before and during the crisis and the relative stability of exchange rates. Looking ahead, although uncertainties remain high regarding credit quality, the shock-absorbing capacities of the banking systems are fairly robust, as also evidenced by their relative resilience so far. Nevertheless, as the economic recovery sets in, the central banks should return to and possibly reinforce the implementation of measures to avoid a pro-cyclical build-up of credit asset) boom-bust cycles. Furthermore, given the relevance of foreign-owned banks in two of the three countries, a continued strengthening of home-host cooperation in the supervisory area will be crucial to avoid any kind of regulatory arbitrage. JEL Classification: E3, E52, E58

Financial Stability Challenges in EU Candidate Countries - Financial Systems in the Aftermath of the Global Crisis

This paper reviews financial stability challenges in the EU candidate countries: Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. It follows a macro-prudential approach, emphasising systemic risks and the stability of financial systems as a whole. The paper recalls that the economies of all three countries experienced a recession in 2008-09 and shows how this slowed the rapid process of financial deepening that had been taking place since the beginning of the last decade. The deteriorating economic and financial conditions manifested themselves, first and foremost, through a marked deterioration in asset quality. These direct credit risks were compounded by the transformation of exchange and interest rate risks through a widespread use of foreign exchange-denominated or indexed loans and variable or adjustable interest rate loans. Moreover, funding and liquidity risks also materialised to some extent, although fully fledged bank runs were avoided, and none of the countries experienced a sharp reversal in external financing. Overall, the deterioration in asset quality has so far been managed well by the banking systems of the candidate countries, facilitated by large capital buffers, pro-active macro-prudential policies pursued by the authorities both before and during the crisis and the relative stability of exchange rates. Looking ahead, although uncertainties remain high regarding credit quality, the shock-absorbing capacities of the banking systems are fairly robust, as also evidenced by their relative resilience so far. Nevertheless, as the economic recovery sets in, the central banks should return to and possibly reinforce the implementation of measures to avoid a pro-cyclical build-up of credit asset) boom-bust cycles. Furthermore, given the relevance of foreign-owned banks in two of the three countries, a continued strengthening of home-host cooperation in the supervisory area will be crucial to avoid any kind of regulatory arbitrage. JEL Classification: E3, E52, E58

Financial Stability Challenges in Candidate Countries: Managing the Transition to Deeper and More Market-Oriented Financial Systems

Financial Stability Challenges in Candidate Countries: Managing the Transition to Deeper and More Market-Oriented Financial Systems

Capital Account Liberalization and Risk Management in India

This paper takes a closer look at the prudential and regulatory measures needed to prepare India's financial system to manage the risks arising from fuller capital account convertibility (FCAC). The paper contributes to the debate on FCAC in two ways. First, it reviews the potential and existing financial stability challenges to FCAC in India. Second it studies how prudential regulation and supervision is addressing these challenges. The main conclusion is that regulatory and supervisory measures alone are not enough and will need to be complemented by improvements in Indian banks' risk management and further development of the domestic capital markets.

Macroeconomic and Financial Stability Challenges for Acceding and Candidate Countries

This paper – based on a report by a Task Force established by the International Relations Committee (IRC) of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) – reviews macroeconomic and financial stability challenges for acceding (Bulgaria and Romania) and candidate countries (Croatia and Turkey). In an environment characterised by strong growth and capital inflows, the main macroeconomic challenges relate to the recent pick-up of inflation and the large and widening current account deficits. Moreover, rapid credit growth has been a recent feature of financial development in all countries and thus constitutes the main financial stability challenge. In general, monetary authorities have responded to these challenges by tightening monetary conditions and prudential standards, with concrete measures also reflecting the different monetary and exchange rate regimes in the region. The paper also highlights four specific features of financial development in the countries under review, namely the dominance of banks in financial intermediation, the strong participation of foreign-owned banks, the widespread use of foreign currencies and the strengthening of supervisory frameworks. JEL Classification: E65, G21, G38, O16, P27.