I am going to start linking updates from the IMF, Bank for International Settlements, ECB and Central Banks. I subscribe to all their updates, and wanted to start summarising their speeches. However, there's too many, so I'll just link the most interesting ones instead.
E-commerce in the pandemic and beyond:
Key takeaways
E-commerce has ramped up during the pandemic around the world. The growth has differed across sectors and over different stages of the pandemic. Novel data sources can help to follow these trends.
The growth of e-commerce has been higher in countries where there were more stringent containment measures and where e-commerce was initially less developed.
Some changes in consumers' shopping habits and payment behaviour may be longer-lasting. This may have implications for structural change and the growth of the digital economy.
Covid-19 and cyber risk in the financial sector
Key takeaways
The financial sector has been hit by hackers relatively more often than other sectors during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While this has not yet led to significant disruptions or a systemic impact, there are substantial risks from cyber attacks for financial institutions, their staff and their customers going forward.
Financial authorities are working to mitigate cyber risks, including through international cooperation.
The ‘new normal’ during normal times – liquidity regulation and conventional monetary policy:
Central banks around the world are discussing how to revise monetary policy frameworks. Although the current Covid-19 pandemic has postponed the return to normal market operations, an important question that arises when considering taking steps towards a normalization of monetary policy is how liquidity regulation interacts with monetary policy implementation in the absence of large-scale open market operations. Shedding light on this question is the purpose of this paper. Liquidity risk has always been a core risk in banking...
As regards the first of these factors, fiscal policy must play a leading role in the strategy for tackling climate change and smoothing the transition to a more sustainable economy. The role of fiscal policy should be to discourage the most environmentally harmful activities (ideally through an internationally harmonised tax system), while boosting the public and private investment needed to develop cleaner technologies and alleviate the social costs of transition.
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I don't think you have to read the entire documents. They're very long and, a there's lot of them. I can't read them all. However, with a quick scan you will begin to see a familiar and constant theme. What do you think it is?
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However, this is one you should read. Welcome to the future. (Whether you like it or not.)
The financial industry is undergoing rapid technological change. Traditional banks face competition from online start-ups with no physical branches. Social media and other digital platforms are expanding into payments and credit. The increase in demand for digital services triggered by COVID-19 is turbo-charging this transformation. The confluence we are witnessing is driving fintech innovation and raises important questions. What are the transformative aspects of recent financial innovation that can uproot finance as we know it? Which new policy challenges will the transformation of finance bring?