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Project Samara was a real‑world experiment testing distributed ledger technology and wholesale central bank digital money for bond issuance and settlement in Canada. It demonstrated technical feasibility and potential efficiency and risk‑reduction benefits, while highlighting important trade‑offs related to complexity, governance, and regulatory alignment.

Implicit government guarantees of banking-sector liabilities reduce market discipline by private sector stakeholders and temper the risk sensitivity of funding costs. This potentially increases the likelihood of bailouts from taxpayers, especially in the absence of effective resolution frameworks.

Monetary policy and financial stability are closely intertwined, and the resilience of the financial system carries weight in this relationship. This paper explores whether the financial system is more resilient as a result of the G20’s post-crisis agenda for financial regulatory reform.

The Canadian economy expanded at an average rate of over 4 per cent through the second half of 1996 and the first three quarters of 1997. The expansion was supported by accommodative monetary conditions, substantial employment gains, low inflation, an improved fiscal postion, and strong U.S. demand. These factors will continue to underpin a scenario of sustained growth in output and employment in the period ahead. With the situation in Asia still evolving, it is difficult to be precise about the size of its overall impact on Canada. At the same time, there have been some positive developments including stronger-than-anticipated economic performance in the United States, Mexico, and Europe and declining longer-term interest rates in most industrial countries. The core rate of inflation slipped slightly below the 1 to 3 per cent target range in the closing months of 1997. With the unwinding of some of the special factors that contributed to the decline, trend inflation is expected to move back inside the range in coming months.

We document an increase in deviations from short-term covered interest rate parity (CIP) in the first half of 2015. Since the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) decision to abandon its minimum exchange rate policy, both the magnitude and volatility of deviations from CIP have increased across several currency pairs. The effect is particularly pronounced for pairs involving the Swiss franc.

Central banks contribute importantly to the promotion of financial stability given their sys-tem-wide macro-financial perspective and existing roles as lender of last resort and overseer of systemic payment systems. Since the global financial crisis, the financial system role of central banks has expanded to place more emphasis on the prevention of financial stress and crises. Central banks work with other responsible authorities to enhance financial system resilience and to assess and mitigate financial vulnerabilities and systemic risk.

We have just witnessed the dawn of a new era in Europe. Beginning this month, 11 of the 15 member countries of the European Union have joined in a currency union. And they are using the euro as their common currency. The currency union is yet another step on the road to greater economic, social, and political integration in Europe - a vision some 50 years in the making.

Quarterly Financial Report - Second Quarter 2016 - For the period ended 30 June 2016

This issue features three articles that present research and analysis by Bank of Canada staff. The first updates previous Bank estimates of measurement bias in the Canadian consumer price index; the second uses a new term-structure model to analyze the relationship between the short-term policy rate and long-term interest rates; and the third examines indicators of balance-sheet risks at financial institutions in Canada.