April 2024: Disasters and bank financing

VoxEU Columnby Mikhail Mamonov, Steven Ongena, Anna Pestova Disasters are mostly unexpected, but during recent decades the world has witnessed a rising incidence of disasters of various types, including armed conflicts, infectious diseases, and natural calamities. This rise is expected to continue in the future due to political and demographic developments, nature loss, and climate[…]

April 2024: Banks in Space

University of Chicago BFI Research Brief by Ezra Oberfield, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, Nicholas Trachter, Derek Wenning The banking deregulation of the 1980s and 90s provides unique evidence of the way in which banks set up their branches across locations. Two forms of sorting explain observed location patterns well. Sorting on size, whereby top banks locate in[…]

April 2024: The growth of the South in global finance: New bilateral data and stylised facts

VoxEU Columnby Fernando Broner, Sergio L. Schmukler & Goetz von Peter The countries of the Global South are becoming increasingly important actors in the global financial economy. This column uses a comprehensive new bilateral dataset on cross-border bank loans and deposits, portfolio investment, foreign direct investment, and international reserves, covering the period from 2001 to[…]

April 2024: The General Board of the European Systemic Risk Board held its 53rd regular meeting on 21 March 2024

ESRB Press Release At its meeting on 21 March 2024, the General Board of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) acknowledged the resilience of the banking system but concluded that financial stability risks in the EU remain elevated amid high geopolitical uncertainty. Links: ESRB Press Release – The General Board of the European Systemic Risk[…]

March 2024: Safeguarding the financial system’s spare tyre: regulating non-bank retail lenders in the digital era

FSI Insights on policy implementation – No 56by Johannes Ehrentraud, Ségolène Mure, Elisabeth Noble and Raihan Zamil Non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) encompass numerous firms with distinct business models that provide various financial services. This includes NBFI retail lenders, such as finance companies, mortgage companies, fintechs and big techs that lend to households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this[…]

March 2024: Recent trends in central bank independence

by Davide Romelli Central bank independence is widely considered the backbone of modern economic policy analysis. This column examines the evolution of central bank independence for a sample of 155 countries from 1923 to 2023, and reveals a remarkable global shift towards enhancing the independence of monetary authorities. Despite the post-2008 challenges and the recent[…]

February 2024: ECB Supervision Newsletter

by the ECB The supervison newsletter is published every three months. It highlights and summarises key issues in banking supervision that are of interest to banks and the wider financial sector. This issue includes among others an Interview with Claudia Buch and articles on rise in outsourcing, data quality, ICT and security risks, and stronger[…]