Blogs

Contactless payments seem to be taking off. However, cash is still used for many purposes and more information is needed to understand all aspects of cash usage.

Open and transparent communication is a win-win situation for monetary policy. It helps the private sector make better economic decisions and allows the central bank to achieve its price stability objective more efficiently.

Bank of Finland invests in green bonds, but expects, that the market would be more transparent and follow a universally agreed set of standards.

Originally conceived as an alternative to the official monetary system, cryptocurrencies have failed to realise their intended purpose.

In the digitalising world authorities must must actively monitor the financial market's structural transformation and ensure that the use of digital financial services is safe and reliable.

Digitalisation is currently the most significant force transforming banking as well as the entire financial industry at large.

An integrated European banking market can be seen as an ultimate objective of the Europe’s banking union project. The recent initiative to reduce home bias in banks’ sovereign debt exposures aims to support these goals.

We found a connection between the euro exchange rate and the relative performance of ‘small’ and ‘large’ companies. One could suggest that strengthening euro leads large companies to underperform small companies.

Caucasian and Central Asian regions host ethnically and culturally diverse populations, but the countries have a long history of political and economic integration.

Several reforms improving banking and financial market regulation as well as supervision have been put through since summer 2013.

Shadow banking is a broad concept. A possible definition is that it comprises non-bank institutions which undertake bank-like activities. Another characteristic is that the sector is overall less regulated.

The existence of a lower bound for nominal interest rates complicates the monetary policy. Central banks have lately tried to circumvent this problem by applying non-standard monetary policy measures.

In exceptional circumstances, Eurosystem central banks can also grant credit to banks outside monetary policy operations.