Australia
Apra toughens mortgage risk weights for Australian banks
Australian regulator's move to end era of low home loan risk weights helps push banks toward top quartile for capital ratio
Stevens: global financial conditions remain ‘very accommodative’
Reserve Bank of Australia governor points to steady financial conditions and borrowing rates despite market fluctuations associated with China and Greece; RBA holds cash rate
Glenn Stevens sees limits to central bank communication
Reserve Bank of Australia governor argues central banks cannot communicate its response to ‘all possible future states of the world’ and the audience is only after a ‘simple story’ anyway
Aussie sovereign wealth fund readies for lower future returns
Australia's Future Fund has adopted a flexible approach to deal with a challenging yield environment
RBA minutes note mixed signals for policy
Slight slowdown globally and nervousness over Greece and US rates offset by ‘solid’ lending growth, stronger employment and improved sentiment
RBA’s Kent says transmission mechanism seems to be weathering shocks
‘Headwinds’ are working against the Australian economy but the evidence implies the monetary transmission mechanism ‘is about as effective as usual’, assistant governor says
RBA’s Stevens says infrastructure project could help solve growth problems
Governor sees limits to monetary policy and urges government to fill the void by maintaining spending and launching a long-run infrastructure plan
Qualified support for central clearing of repos in Australia
RBA consultation attracts general support from market participants, but respondents say benefits rely crucially on strong take-up – the same issue that ended Australia’s last repo CCP experiment
RBA deputy governor shares lessons on collective investment vehicles
Philip Lowe discusses the risks associated with maturity transformation in the country’s growing asset management industry; says disruptions can be managed
Minutes show RBA could still ease further
Board members feel the decision to drop guidance that further easing ‘may be appropriate’ does not limit the ‘scope’ for them to cut rates further
RBA’s Lowe wary of structural adjustment in global interest rates
Australian deputy governor expects rates on offer to savers to pick up when confidence grows and businesses compete for funds again, but sees potential for structural shift as well
RBA paper unpacks central bank’s DSGE model
Authors shed light on adapted DSGE model used in Australia, emphasising its deliberate simplicity so additional features can be bolted on as needed
RBA paper builds new model of banks’ credit losses
Model draws on new dataset and focuses on interactions between portfolio-level and macro variables in attempt to explain historical bank credit losses in Australia
Opposition from big banks to RBA interchange fee curb
Large commercial banks and payments providers warn of damaging impact of regulating interchange fees, but smaller challenger payment systems are broadly in favour
Lift-off for ASX Aussie dollar swap clearing business
Volumes jump in the first three months of the year following revamp of Sydney bourse's clearing incentive scheme
RBA paper finds high social cost to counterfeiting
Researchers try to put a figure on how much counterfeit banknotes cost the economy; Australian economy suffers from lower counterfeiting than elsewhere
Australian dollar jumps despite RBA rate cut
Australian central bank cuts benchmark interest rate to 2%; governor Stevens says currency depreciation 'necessary' amid falling terms of trade
Stevens cautious on bail-in efficacy
Reserve Bank of Australia governor says bail-in is subject to a ‘host’ of complexities that could mean it goes less smoothly in practice than regulators would like to believe
RBA paper finds only weak support for sticky information Phillips curve
Paper provides ‘first estimates’ of a sticky information Phillips curve for Australia, finding the curve fits poorly with the inflation-targeting era but better in earlier years
PBoC continues leadership reshuffle
Two assistant governors appointed at the People’s Bank of China; swap lines agreed with Australian and South African counterparts
RBA alert to ongoing housing risks
Financial stability review shows the Reserve Bank of Australia is still concerned about investor demand in the market; says it is ‘too early’ to judge impact of APRA measures
RBA’s Debelle tackles term premia puzzle
Guy Debelle says the most plausible explanation for the prevailing low level of term premia in global fixed income markets is the shortage of risk-free assets
RBA research sets out stress test for households
Model emphasises dangers of relying on aggregate measures of household indebtedness when assessing financial stability and setting monetary policy
RBA mulls creation of repo CCP
Australia currently lacks a CCP for clearing repos, which could be exacerbating systemic risk and impairing market functioning, but previous efforts met with little enthusiasm