Chapter 1 looks at the implications of the war in Ukraine on the financial system. Commodity prices pose challenging trade-offs for central banks. Many emerging and frontier markets are facing especially difficult conditions. In China, financial vulnerabilities remain elevated amid ongoing stress in the property sector and new COVID-19 outbreaks. Central banks should act decisively to prevent inflation from becoming entrenched without jeopardizing the recovery. Policymakers will need to confront the structural issues brought to the fore by the war, including the trade-off between energy security and climate transition. Chapter 2 discusses the sovereign-bank nexus in emerging markets. Bank holdings of domestic sovereign bonds have surged in emerging markets during the pandemic. With public debt at historically high levels and the sovereign credit outlook deteriorating, there is a risk of a negative feedback loop that could threaten macro-financial stability. Chapter 3 examines the challenges to financial stability posed by the rapid rise of risky business segments in fintech. Policies that target both fintech firms and incumbent banks proportionately are needed.

Chapter 1 documents that near-term global financial stability risks have receded amid expectations that global disinflation is entering its last mile. However, along it, there are several salient risks and a build-up of medium-term vulnerabilities. Chapter 2 assesses vulnerabilities and potential risks to financial stability in corporate private credit, a rapidly growing asset class—traditionally focused on providing loans to midsize firms outside the realms of either commercial banks or public debt markets—that now rivals other major credit markets in size. Chapter 3 shows that while cyber incidents have thus far not been systemic, the probability of severe cyber incidents has increased, posing an acute threat to macrofinancial stability.

The baseline forecast is for growth to fall from 3.4 percent in 2022 to 2.8 percent in 2023, before settling at 3.0 percent in 2024. Advanced economies are expected to see an especially pronounced growth slowdown, from 2.7 percent in 2022 to 1.3 percent in 2023. In a plausible alternative scenario with further financial sector stress, global growth declines to about 2.5 percent in 2023 with advanced economy growth falling below 1 percent. Global headline inflation in the baseline is set to fall from 8.7 percent in 2022 to 7.0 percent in 2023 on the back of lower commodity prices but underlying (core) inflation is likely to decline more slowly. Inflation’s return to target is unlikely before 2025 in most cases.

Global financial stability risks have increased amid a series of cascading shocks. Chapter 1 analyzes the policy response of central banks to high inflation, the risks of a disorderly tightening of financial conditions, and debt distress among emerging and frontier markets. Markets have been extremely volatile, and a deterioration in market liquidity appears to have amplified price moves. In Europe, the energy crisis is contributing to a worsening outlook. In China, the property sector remains a key source of vulnerability. Chapter 2 examines how to narrow the climate financing gap in emerging market and developing economies. Climate policies, including carbon pricing, climate disclosures, and transition taxonomies, are crucial for enabling private climate finance. Innovative financial instruments can help to scale up private climate finance, but the public sector—including multilateral development banks—will have to play a key supporting role. Chapter 3 analyzes the contributions of open-end investment funds to fragilities in asset markets. Open-end investment funds play a key role in financial markets, but those offering daily redemptions while holding illiquid assets can amplify the effects of adverse shocks by raising the likelihood of investor runs and asset fire sales. This contributes to volatility in asset markets and potentially threatens financial stability.

The global financial system has shown remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a sharp decline in economic activity and the initial financial market upheaval in March 2020. This paper takes stock of the factors that contributed to this resilience, focusing on the role of monetary and financial policies. In response to the pandemic-induced crisis, major central banks acted swiftly and decisively, cutting policy rates, introducing new asset purchase programs, providing liquidity support for the banking system, and creating several emergency facilities to sustain the flow of credit to the real economy. Several emerging market central banks also deployed asset purchase programs for the first time. While the pandemic crisis has underscored the importance of policies in preventing calamitous financial outcomes, it has also brought to the fore some unintended consequences of policy actions—in particular, of providing prolonged monetary policy support and applying regulation to specific segments of the financial system rather than taking a broader approach—that could undermine financial stability in the future.

Malaysia registered a strong economic recovery in 2022, backed by its well diversified economy, sound policy frameworks, and commodity exporter status. While monetary policy started a gradual post-pandemic normalization, record costly spending on fuel subsidies broadly kept inflationary pressures suppressed in 2022. Meanwhile, the new national unity government has signaled its commitment to the reform priorities outlined in the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (12MP) and the 2023 Budget to propel the economy toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and high-income status.

This second edition further explores the regulatory landscape of cryptocurrency, highlighting the rise of Bitcoin, which is based on blockchain technology, and some of the many types of coins and tokens that emerged thereafter. Although Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have made national and international news with their dramatic rise and decline in value, nevertheless the underlying technology is being adopted by both industry and governments, which have noted the benefits of speed, cost efficiency, and protection from hacking. Based on numerous downloaded articles, laws, cases, and other materials, the book discusses the digital transformation, the types of cryptocurrencies, key actors, and the benefits and risks. It also addresses legal issues of digital technology and the evolving U.S. federal regulation. The varying treatment by individual U.S. states is reviewed together with attempts by organizations to arrive at a uniform regulatory regime. Both civil and criminal prosecutions are highlighted with an examination of the major cases that have arisen. This second edition specifically explores the creation of stablecoins, governments issuance of their own versions of digital currencies, new regulations that have been enacted and promulgated, and a clearer examination of futuristic evolutions that potentially will have a major impact upon the current cited technologies.

Financial Crises - Challenges and Solutions examines why and how financial crises occur and what can be learned from past crises. It puts forth possible solutions to avoid the recurrence of crises and offers empirical evidence and policy implications, making it a useful resource for researchers in finance.

Banks in Africa are weathering the COVID-19 pandemic well and showing a lot of creativity to overcome the crisis's problems. But the war in Ukraine is causing new concerns. With interest rates rising in many countries and bond funding becoming more expensive, a significant number of banks are worried about rising financing costs. These issues and more are covered in the new Finance in Africa report, based on an annual survey of banks across the continent and supported by Making Finance Work for Africa, an initiative helping more people get loans across the continent. We surveyed 70 banks in sub-Saharan Africa from April to June in 2022 to find out if the war is hurting their business and to learn their views on climate lending, access to finance for women and the accelerating digitisation of the financial sector.

This Palgrave Pivot investigates how the Chinese and United States financial systems are becoming increasingly interdependent, in spite of a simultaneous technological rivalry and ‘decoupling’ between the two nations. The book offers a comparative analysis of Sino-US financial systems before and after the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, demonstrating the deepening integration of China into global financial markets and its move from an indirect bank-based system towards a direct market-oriented system. It discusses the economic and technological competition that has arisen between the US and China, the two largest financial centers based on financial technology, and demonstrates the differences in national interest driving processes of digitalization and FinTech applications. At the same time, the book points to ways in which a market-oriented global financial system and the rapid international growth of financial technology make future cooperation inevitable and necessary. This book places Sino-US financial relations in a broader financial-economic perspective and will be of interest to academics, consultants and students working in banking and finance, international financial markets, comparative economics, monetary theory and Chinese business studies.