BISness Bank for International Settlements

Global green financing has grown 100 times over the past decade. And yet, it is still surrounded by considerable controversy – why is it so? Bank of France’s Jean Boissinot – a leading expert of green finance in the central bank community – explains what green finance can (and cannot) do for environmental sustainability. He also highlights the role and achievements of the Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of central banks and supervisors working together on environmental and climate issues

Cecilia Skingsley looks at her first six months as Head of the BIS Innovation Hub, the path of innovation on the public sector and the role of central banks and the private sector in providing financial services in a rapidly changing world. She says that central banks have to follow and understand not only cyclical changes, but also structural changes, which “can be slow and take a long time, such as globalization (…), or be very rapid and disruptive, such as the pandemic.” She also talks about diversity and being the first policymaker to propose a digital currency in her native Sweden.

Claudio Borio and Hyun Song Shin summarize the March 2023 Quarterly Review and answer journalists' questions about market developments and the economic outlook. 

Central banks face difficult trade-offs when deciding the speed and size of interest rate hikes to counter inflation, as well as how long to keep the policy rate at the peak. Egon Zakrajšek, Senior Adviser in the BIS Monetary and Economic Department, discusses the benefits and risks of “front-loading” rate increases, drawing from a recent BIS Bulletin he co-authored with Paolo Cavallino, Giulio Cornelli and Peter Hördahl.

The BIS Innovation Hub is leading practical experiments to show how CBDCs can help deliver faster, cheaper and more transparent cross-border payments. Codruta Boar, advisor at the Innovation Hub, discusses research that she has co-authored with Morten Bech, Daniel Eidan, Philipp Haene, Henry Holden and Wee Kee Toh. Read more: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp51.htm

Claudio Borio and Hyun Song Shin brief the media on the key takeaways of the BIS December 2022 Quarterly Review and answer questions about FX markets, liquidity conditions, monetary policy and crypto assets.