Search

After briefly reviewing the current macrofinancial environment, I intend to concentrate on the G-20 reform agenda. The financial crisis has cost tens of millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in foregone output.

Helliwell traces the changes that have occurred at the Bank of Canada since the early 1960s, when he first began a long and extensive relationship with the institution and its staff. He begins with his work on the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance (the Porter Commission) and continues over the next 40 years, giving particular focus to the Bank's analytic and research activities. Although he is careful to note the benefits of alternative analytical and information-gathering techniques, such as the extensive mail and direct interview survey that he and his colleagues conducted as part of the Royal Commission, Helliwell devotes most of his attention to the Bank's econometric modelling efforts, starting with RDX1 and RDX2 in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He cites some of the internal, as well as external, obstacles that had to be overcome as the Bank's modelling efforts advanced, and how shifting trends in the economics profession have sometimes posed a challenge. Helliwell concludes that these developments helped the Bank to come of age and take its place in the front ranks of the world's evidence-based policy-research institutions.

External Deputy Governor Nicolas Vincent gives a behind the scenes look at the rigorous research, analysis and debate that go into every monetary policy decision.

The Annual Report outlines the Bank’s activities and achievements in 2019. It includes the financial statements and a message from Governor Stephen S. Poloz.

Chen et al. (2021) show that almost one-third of First Nations band offices in Canada are within 1 kilometre (km) of an automated banking machine (ABM) or financial institution (FI) branch and more than half are within 5 km.

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.

This supervisory policy helps individuals and entities determine if they are subject to the Retail Payment Activities Act and if they should register with the Bank.

From the autumn of 2023 into early 2024, the Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average (CORRA), a measure of the cost of overnight general collateral Canadian dollar repos, was consistently well above the Bank’s target for the overnight rate. We find that, among several factors, long bond positions that require repo financing are the main driver of the recent upward pressure on CORRA.

In these excerpts from a presentation to a conference in Toronto, Deputy Governor Charles Freedman analyses the way in which the monetary conditions index (MCI) enters into the Bank's thinking and actions. He describes how the Bank works in the context of a forward-looking assessment of economic developments and inflationary pressures to decide upon a desired path for the MCI that will result in a rate of inflation, six to eight quarters ahead, that is within the Bank's target band. Mr. Freedman also uses specific examples to explain how various shocks to the economy can change the Bank's desired path for monetary conditions. He describes the role that tactical considerations relating to market circumstances play regarding the timing of Bank actions to bring monetary conditions onto the desired path and emphasizes the need to give precedence to steadying nervous markets.

The Bank of Canada and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) today announced plans for a pilot project to use climate-change scenarios to better understand the risks to the financial system related to a transition to a low-carbon economy.