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Central banks’ actions to stabilize financial markets and implement monetary policy during crises may come with costs and side effects. We provide a literature review of these costs and discuss measures that may mitigate the negative impacts of crisis actions.

Beginning in 1864, in the United States notes of national banks were the predominant medium of exchange. Each national bank issued its own notes. E-money shares many of the characteristics of these bank notes.

Deputy Governor Lawrence Schembri discusses the importance of potential output to monetary policy, as well as policy challenges and opportunities in a world of low potential output growth.

The Annual Report outlines the Bank’s activities and achievements in 2016. It includes the financial statements and a message from Governor Stephen S. Poloz.

The Bank of Canada is updating its emergency lending policies to reflect the evolution of the Canadian financial system and lessons learned globally during the 2007–09 financial crisis. This paper sets out proposed updates to the Bank of Canada’s Emergency Lending Assistance (ELA) policies and is being issued for public consultation. All comments on this consultation paper should be received by 4 July 2015.

Using stock market data on banks, we show that the book value of loans recognizes losses with a delay. This delayed accounting is important for regulation because the requirements regulators impose are based on book values.

There have been positive developments in the global financial system since the June Financial System Review, in part reflecting some encouraging signs about the global economy. At the same time, significant vulnerabilities remain. The Governing Council judges that the overall risk to the stability of Canada’s financial system has decreased from “high” to “elevated” over the past six months.

The authors present the four common cyclical vulnerabilities that appear in financial systems, providing examples of qualitative and quantitative indicators used to monitor these vulnerabilities across different sectors. They also discuss other inputs to the vulnerability assessment and to the internal process used at the Bank of Canada for identifying, evaluating and communicating vulnerabilities and risks, and highlight some of the key challenges in assessing financial system vulnerabilities and risks.

Given the Bank of Canada's strong interest in the safe and efficient operation of major clearing and settlement systems, the Bank maintains a rigorous research agenda as a means of informing payments system policy and oversight. In this article, Arjani and Engert review recent research undertaken by Bank staff concerning the risk and efficiency of the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS). Based on the findings from this research, the authors conclude that the design of the LVTS strikes an effective balance between risk and efficiency. The article also demonstrates the increased use of simulation analysis as a tool for conducting payments system research. A brief summary of the Bank's oversight strategy for systemically important payments systems is also provided. Goals for future research are noted as well, including modelling of participant behaviour and continued external collaboration with other researchers.

The Reports section of the Financial System Review examines selected issues of relevance to the Canadian and global financial systems. The June 2015 issue features two reports summarizing recent work by Bank of Canada staff on specific financial sector policies.