Search

This paper provides an overview of digitalization and its economic implications. We assess the scope of digitalization in Canada as well as the challenges related to its measurement.

The LVTS is an electronic network for sending and receiving large-value payments. It is expected to become operational in the first half of 1999. Major chartered banks and other large deposit-taking institutions will provide access to the system for their clients in the financial, corporate and government sectors. Canada’s LVTS exceeds world standards for risk control in large-value systems. The author explains how this is achieved through the netting, bilateral and multilateral credit limits, collateral, and loss-sharing procedures used in the event of a default, and, as a last resort, a guarantee by the Bank of Canada. The LVTS gives participating institutions certainty of settlement for their LVTS positions every day, even if one or more participants default. This greatly reduces systemic risk in the financial system. Moreover, the LVTS supports finality of payment; that is, it makes funds unconditionally and irrevocably available to the receiver. Finality is highly desirable when the amount of the payment is substantial, or when exact timing is critical. Since the LVTS will carry the great majority of the value of all payments in Canada, it should be considered the core of the national payments system.

In our Financial System Review, we identify the main vulnerabilities and risks to financial stability in Canada and explain how they have evolved over the past year. This issue reflects the Bank’s judgment that the vulnerabilities associated with high household debt and imbalances in the housing market have declined modestly but remain significant. The Financial System Review is a product of the Governing Council of the Bank of Canada: Stephen S. Poloz, Carolyn A. Wilkins, Timothy Lane, Lawrence Schembri, Lynn Patterson and Paul Beaudry.

The FSR reports on developments and trends in financial systems here and abroad, summarizes recent research by Bank staff on financial sector policies, and promotes discussion of how to strengthen our financial system. In short, the goal of the FSR is to improve financial system efficiency and stability.

This article examines the developments in the monetary aggregates over the course of 1997 and their implications for future economic activity. The narrow aggregate, M1, grew rapidly in the first half of 1997 but slowed somewhat during the second half of the year. Much of the strong growth in this aggregate over the last several years has been associated with a higher demand for transactions balances as interest rates declined and economic activity revived. There were some special factors at play, however, that are discussed in the article. The Bank expects some slowing in M1 growth through 1998 and into 1999. This would be consistent with a trend of inflation within the inflation-control target range of 1 to 3 per cent over the next couple of years. Growth in the broad aggregate, M2+, continued to be distorted by the shift of savings out of fixed-term deposits into mutual funds. A broader aggregate that includes M2+, CSBs, and all mutual funds and thus provides a better estimate of broad money growth, grew at a moderate pace during 1997. The recent behaviour of the broad monetary aggregates continues to suggest that inflation will remain low in coming years.

Business sentiment and sales growth expectations have stopped falling, according to firms responding to the Business Outlook Survey and the Business Leaders’ Pulse. But demand remains subdued, which is allowing price pressures and the labour market to ease. As a result, fewer firms than in the previous survey are planning unusually large or frequent price increases over the next 12 months.

Inflation can affect both the dispersion of commodity-specific price levels across locations (relative price variability, RPV) and the dispersion of inflation rates (relative inflation variability, RIV). Some menu-cost models and models of consumer search suggest that the RIV-inflation relationship could differ from the RPV-inflation relationship.

Since 1997, the Bank of Canada’s regional offices have been conducting the Business Outlook Survey (BOS), a quarterly survey of business conditions. Survey responses are gathered through face-to-face, confidential consultations with a sample of private sector firms representative of the various sectors, firm sizes and regions across Canada.

Conditions in the international financial system have improved considerably since June in response to the forceful actions taken by policy-makers around the world.

FSR Highlights - December 2009

The Bank of Canada has distinct roles as a lender of last resort. This article outlines how and under what circumstances the Bank can routinely provide liquidity to facilitate payment settlement, as well as the various ways it can respond in more exceptional situations.