Central Banks
Belgium’s mint to close in 2018
Coin production will be outsourced to save money, given decline in production, losing no jobs in the process, Mint official says
Keith Arnold, Belize's longest-serving governor, dies
Arnold, who served as central bank governor for 10 years in the 1990s, dies at 72; he held three major financial offices
The changing composition of central bank balance sheets
Quantitative easing may have been necessary, but it has created worrying distortions and has probably discouraged structural change, while deflecting attention away from ever-greater levels of debt leverage
UK’s Royal Mint to supply 150 million Argentinian peso blanks
The UK’s Royal Mint will ship coins, along with equipment, to Argentinian mint, where engineers will help with the final design stamping
Paper’s forecasting technique using Markov-switching models
Results outperform Fed’s survey of professional forecasters, says Bank of Spain paper
IMF research explores effects of lighter rule on US banks
Republicans in Congress claim Dodd-Frank increases complexity and hampers small banks’ lending
Zimbabwe back to printing bond notes
Reserve bank to release an extra $300 million into the system from August to deal with forex demand; governor says bolstering regulation should help “plug” forex leakages
Moody’s upgrades UK banking sector on improved capital positions
Banks' funding costs have declined and insurance against bank defaults is at its lowest since the financial crisis, while capital buffers have increased
BoE working paper examines ‘exorbitant privilege’ benefits
Economist analyses whether the UK enjoyed the same benefits as the US when it was the pre-eminent issuer of a global reserve currency; findings show fundamental differences between the two in terms of investment patterns
Zhou did not get what he wanted, but has not left empty-handed
The key five-year meeting in China has resulted in shift of focus to systemic risk and regulation, and away from liberalisation and innovation
Opposition politicians call for Malaysian central bank to reopen probe
Move follows US government lawsuit claiming over $1.6 billion in assets and damages
Fed paper: corporate bond buying can misallocate capital
Capital misallocation effects can mean corporate bond purchase schemes underperform QE based on sovereign bonds, say economists
IMF deems negative rates to have had ‘no major side effects’
IMF paper explores the impact of negative interest rates on bank behaviour, concluding the transmission to money markets and bond yields has worked well