Last night, in a much anticipated speech broadcast live on the Reserve Bank’s website, Governor Phil Lowe laid out in very clear terms the circumstances in which the bank would resort to quantitative easing and the way in which it would implement it. Via The Conversation.
Quantitative easing is simply a change in the way it eases monetary policy when the official interest rate approaches zero.
Usually it does it by cutting the so-called cash rate, which is the rate banks pay each other for money deposited overnight.
Eight years ago the cash rate was 4.5%. Three years ago it was 1.5%.
After the most recent three cuts in June, July and October, it is just
0.75%
Last night, Governor Lowe said the effective lower bound was 0.25%.
Rather than let the cash rate get any lower or negative (an option he
explicitly ruled out), the bank will push down other longer-term rates
by buying government bonds.
It’s the “quantitative easing” approach adopted by the US Federal Reserve between 2009 and 2014.
Government bonds are sold by governments in return for money, a means
of borrowing. The buyer gets guaranteed interest payments and a
guarantee that their money will be returned in full after three, five,
ten or even 20 years depending on the length of the bond.
Once issued, bonds can be traded on a market, and the price at which
they change hands can be expressed as an implied interest rate, which
becomes the risk-free rate against which all other interest rates are
benchmarked.
How quantitative easing would work
Buying bonds from investors would push down that risk-free rate, pushing down the entire structure of long-term interest rates.
All other things being equal, this should also push down the exchange
rate by reducing the return on Australian dollar denominated financial
investments.
Governor Lowe indicated he might buy state government bonds as well as Commonwealth bonds.
Importantly, he argued that although the bank would be mindful of the
need to ensure private banks had enough access to the bonds they needed
to hold for regulatory purposes, those holdings would not be an
impediment to quantitative easing.
He ruled out buying residential mortgage-backed securities and other
private assets given that those markets are currently functioning well
and Reserve Bank purchases could distort them.
The approach borrows heavily from the US Fed.
As in the US, Lowe says quantitative easing would be complemented by
“forward guidance,” where the Reserve Bank would signal early how
long-term interest rates would be kept low and the circumstances in
which it expected to raise them again.
The guidance is designed to influence market expectations for future
interest rates, enhancing the effectiveness of cuts in long term
interest rates.
When it would happen
In addition to “how,” Governor Lowe spelled out “when” – the economic
circumstances in which the bank would resort to quantitative easing.
It would do it when the cash rate was at 0.25% and inflation and unemployment were moving away from its objectives.
The bank targets 2-3% inflation on average over time and has recently
identified 4.5% as the “full employment” unemployment rate.
Importantly, Lowe emphasised that the Australian economy has not yet
reached the point where a cash rate as low as 0.25% would be needed and
argued quantitative easing was unlikely to be needed in future.
The cash rate is at present 0.75%. Setting 0.25% as the effective
lower bound gives the Governor 0.5 percentage points left to cut before
implementing quantitative easing.
Implicitly, Governor Lowe is saying that those cuts of 0.5 percentage points will be enough to stabilise the economy.
A pause for a breath at 0.25%
Lowe also indicated the bank would not seamlessly transition to quantitative easing.
He implied there was an additional hurdle or threshold that would
need to be crossed, suggesting he would be reluctant to make the
transition.
His big problem is that neither inflation nor the unemployment rate are moving in the right direction.
The bank has undershot its inflation target since the end of 2014,
giving the economy a weak starting point going into an emerging global
downturn.
My research
on the US experience for the United States Studies Centre shows that
the main problem with is quantitative easing was that it was not done
soon enough or aggressively enough.
It might be better to be bold
While quantitative easing was effective, it could have been made more so had what was going to happen been made clearer.
The Fed went out of its way to limit the transmission of quantitative
easing to the rest of the economy, fearful it would be too potent and
lead to excessive inflation.
Those concerns proved misplaced. By pulling its punches, the Fed
ended up being less effective and having to pursue quantitative easing
for longer than if it had used it more aggressively.
Governor Lowe’s very obvious reluctance to go down the quantitative easing route suggests the Reserve Bank is in danger of making the same mistake, but it is not too late to learn from what happened in the US.
Author: Stephen Kirchner Program Director, Trade and Investment, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
The ABS released their preliminary data today. Tasmania apart, construction chain measures continue to fall. Trend estimate for residential building work done fell 3.0% this quarter and has fallen for four quarters.
The trend estimate for total construction work done fell 1.6% in the September quarter 2019.
The seasonally adjusted estimate for total construction work done fell 0.4% to $50,849.7m in the September quarter.
The trend estimate for total building work done fell 1.8% in the September quarter 2019.
The trend estimate for non-residential building work done rose 0.2% and residential building work fell 3.0%.
The seasonally adjusted estimate of total building work done fell 0.5% to $29,703.6m in the September quarter.
The trend estimate for engineering work done fell 1.1% in the September quarter.
The seasonally adjusted estimate for engineering work done fell 0.2% to $21,146.2m in the September quarter.
Trend percentage change: Total construction
The trend estimate for total construction work done fell 1.6% this quarter and has fallen for five quarters.
Trend percentage change: Engineering
The trend estimate for engineering construction work done fell 1.1% this quarter and has fallen for six quarters.
Trend percentage change: Building
The trend estimate for total building work done fell 1.8% this quarter and has fallen for four quarters.
Trend percentage change: Residential
The trend estimate for residential building work done fell 3.0% this quarter and has fallen for four quarters.
Trend percentage change: Non-residential
The trend estimate for non-residential building work done rose 0.2% this quarter and has risen for five quarters.
Chain volume measures – Trend estimates
New South Wales Victoria
Construction work done in New South Wales has fallen for four quarters.
Construction work done in Victoria has fallen for four quarters.
Queensland
Western Australia
Construction work done in Queensland has fallen for six quarters.
Construction work done in Western Australia has fallen for eight quarters.
South Australia
Northern Territory
Construction work done in South Australia has fallen for five quarters.
Construction work done in the Northern Territory has fallen for eight quarters.
Tasmania
Australia Capital Territory
Construction work done in Tasmania has risen for seven quarters.
Construction work done in the Australian Capital Territory has fallen for four quarters.
In the RBA’s Governor’s speech last night there was a reference to lower wages growth for longer, referring back to an earlier outing by Guy Debelle, Deputy Governor.
Debelle’s speech at Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) National Conference revealed at least to me that the RBA has no real idea as to why wages growth is so slow. They appear to have all but accepted it will be so. ” This increase in labour supply has meant that the strong employment outcomes in recent years has not generated the pick-up in wages growth that might otherwise have occurred. At the same time, I have highlighted the increased prevalence of wages growth in the 2s across the economy”.
We think the structural changes to the labour market (gig jobs, part-time work, multiple-jobs, etc) plus technological changes and globalisation all have a role to play. And the migration factors and temporary working visas are also playing into the mix. Finally, the balance between employee and employer seems to have shifted. Public sector wages are a little stronger.
He said: Over much of the past three years, employment has grown at a healthy annual pace of 2½ per cent. This has been faster than we had expected, particularly so, given economic growth was slower than we had expected. Employment growth has also been faster than the working-age population has been growing. As a result, the share of the Australian population employed is around its all-time high, which is a good outcome. Normally, we would have expected this strong employment growth to lead to a decline in the unemployment rate. But the unemployment rate has turned out to be very close to what we had expected and has moved sideways around 5¼ per cent for some time now.
So what is going on here? Strong employment growth but little change in the unemployment rate means
that the strength in labour demand has been met by strong growth in labour supply. This increase in
labour supply has come from more people joining the labour force and from some of those with jobs
putting off leaving the labour force. These trends have been particularly pronounced for females aged
between 25 and 54 and older workers of both sexes.
The surprising strength in labour supply has been one of the factors that has contributed to wages
growth being slower than we had expected. But at the same time, the lower growth in wages has probably
contributed to the strength in employment growth. My undergraduate honours thesis at Adelaide Uni
examined the aggregate labour demand curve in Australia which was a much debated topic at the time.[1] So more
than 30 years on, I will discuss similar issues today.
I will look at the rise in participation rates of females and older workers and discuss some of the
factors that have been contributing to it. I will also look briefly at what jobs have been created. In
doing so, I will make use of the micro data in the monthly labour force survey (LFS) as well as micro
data from the HILDA survey.[2] That is, we are examining the micro data to understand the macro trends in the
labour market.
By and large, the new jobs created over the past few years have been representative of the existing
stock of jobs. There have been low wage and high wage, lower skilled and higher skilled jobs created,
but about average on both counts. The jobs growth has been in household services jobs such as health
care, social assistance and, education, as well as in business services. Two-thirds of the employment
growth over the past two years has been in full-time jobs.
Then I will look at wages growth and show that the lower average wage outcomes of the past few years
have reflected the increased prevalence of wages growth in the 2s across the economy.
Finally, I will look forward and talk about the RBA’s forecasts for the labour market. Two of the
critical influences on that forecast are how much further labour supply will increase and how entrenched
are wage outcomes.
Participation
An increase in the number of people in employment can be met either by an increase in people entering
from outside the labour market or a decline in unemployment. The increase in people coming from outside
the labour force, causing an increase in the participation rate, is known as an ‘encouraged
worker’ effect – when economic conditions improve, there is a tendency for people to enter
or defer leaving the workforce.[3] Historically more of the increase in employment has translated into a reduction
in the unemployment rate than by a rise in the participation rate.
However, the past couple of years have been unusual. The increase in employment has been met
disproportionately by an increase in the number of people participating in the labour force
(Graph 1). The share of the population participating in the labour force is at a record high. The
two main groups contributing to this rise in participation are females and older workers. I will discuss
each of these in turn and some of the forces driving the outcomes over both the recent past and from a
longer perspective. An understanding of these forces can help us assess how much further these trends
are likely to continue.
Graph 1
Female participation
Female employment growth has accounted for two-thirds of employment growth over the past year. The
female participation rate is now at its highest rate, and the gap between female and male participation
is now the narrowest it has ever been (Graph 2).
Graph 2
The female participation rate has steadily increased over recent decades (from 40 per cent in
1970 to 61 per cent in 2019), and a similar upward trend is evident across other advanced
economies. Changing societal norms and rising educational attainment have contributed to more women
moving into paid employment or employment outside the home. Female participation has also been
influenced by the increasing flexibility of working-time arrangements, the availability and cost of
child care and policies such as parental leave.
Nearly half of employed females work part time, often to care for children. Over recent decades, the
participation rate of mothers with dependent children has trended higher, rising by 10 percentage
points since the early 2000s to 73 per cent. Over the past decade, the rise in participation
has been most pronounced for mothers with children aged between 0 and 4 (Graph 3). Of those
returning to work within two years after the birth of a child, an increasing majority are citing
‘financial reasons’ as their main reason for doing so. Other mothers returning to work
cite ‘social interaction’ or to ‘maintain career and skills’ as their main
reason. Financial reasons could be capturing a number of different considerations including low income
growth, the rise in household debt or child care costs.
Graph 3
Research suggests the cost and quality of child care does have a significant effect on the labour
supply of women.[4] Data from the HILDA survey show that the share of households using formal child care
for young children has increased notably over the past decade (Graph 4). However, access to child
care places and financial assistance with child care costs remain ‘very important’
incentives for females currently outside the labour force.
Graph 4
Another factor that is linked to higher rates of female participation over recent decades is the
increase in the level of mortgage debt of home owners (Graph 5). The rise in debt levels has
broadly coincided with the increase in the participation rate of females. However, it is difficult to
establish which way causality is going. Are debt levels higher because more households have two incomes
and can afford to borrow more? Or does the need to borrow more to afford housing drive the decision to
participate more? Or is it the case that the low level of income growth in recent years has meant that
households have more debt than they anticipated and need to work longer to pay it down? Research to
establish causality has usually found some evidence of a causal relationship running from higher debt
levels to higher participation.[5] However, the analysis indicates that the effects are not that large at an
aggregate level.
Graph 5
The rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) may also have encouraged increased
participation of female carers. We know from a detailed survey of NDIS participants and their families
that parents of those with disabilities work fewer hours on average and are more likely to be in casual
employment.[6] It is probably too early in the rollout of the scheme to see a material increase in the
number of parents re-entering the labour market. The survey suggests there has been a slight increase in
the average number of hours worked since the start of the scheme, but the percentage of families/carers
of NDIS participants who wanted to work more hours has not changed.
Thus two significant drivers of the increase in participation rates of females aged between 25 and
54 over a long period of time are child care costs and other financial factors. The open question
is how much more the participation rate of this group will rise.
Older workers
The share of the Australian population aged between 15 and 64 years has continued to decline,
and is expected to continue to decline. This is due to the ongoing transition of baby boomers into
retirement ages. All else being equal, an ageing population will result in a fall in the supply of
labour, since the generation retiring is larger than the generation entering the workforce. But there
has been a long-term trend for each cohort to participate more than previous cohorts did at the same
age. That trend has accelerated recently, and more than offset the effect of ageing on its own. The
share of 55 year olds and older that are employed is 35 per cent, compared to
22 per cent 20 years ago.
This cohort effect is particularly clear in the third panel of Graph 6. The much larger rise in
female participation than males over the past two decades is a stark illustration of the effect, as the
other drivers of participation in this age group should have similar influences on both male and female
participation.
Graph 6
Why are older people working longer?[7] One contributing factor is improved health. People are
working longer because they can, both because of their own health and also because the nature of work
has changed over the years towards services and away from manual work, which means most people are in
less physically demanding jobs.
It used to be the case that many older workers would have to choose between working full time and
retiring. From a labour economics point of view, the labour/leisure trade-off has much more choice than
it used to.[8] In the past, it was often an all or nothing decision. As the labour market has become
more flexible over recent decades, older workers may be able to reduce their hours but still participate
in the labour market. Indeed, around one-third of workers aged 55 years and older are working part
time, with over half doing so because they prefer to do so. The ABS Retirement and Retirement Intentions
survey suggests that of people aged 45 years and older, around one-third of workers intend to cut
down from full-time work to part-time work as they get older.
As people live longer, they may want to work longer voluntarily, depending on the value they get from
working. But they also may need to work longer to achieve the necessary income to support the standard
of living they would like in retirement.
Access to a retirement pension or superannuation is a very significant element in the decision to
retire. More than half of all retirees over 60 cite that reaching retirement age or becoming
eligible for the pension/superannuation as the main reason they retired from work. The male
participation rate begins to decline around age 50 and there is a noticeable change in the rate of
decline around 65; the historical pension age for men. For women there is a similar pattern, although in
the past there was also a change in the rate of decline around age 60.
Accordingly, announced and actual increases in pension ages are also likely to have contributed to
increased participation. This has been documented in the past for females after the government increased
the female pension age from 60 to 65 between 1996 and 2013 (in 6 month increments every
2 years).[9]
Currently the pension age is being raised to 67 years for both sexes; a process that began in
2017. The average age of job leavers over the age of 55 has increased slightly in recent years. Our
analysis of LFS micro data provides tentative evidence that the 2017 changes to the pension age had an
impact on workers’ retirement decisions. The participation rate of those born in 1952 and 1953 (who
were affected by the changes in 2017) does not decline as quickly when they turned 65, compared to the
earlier cohort groups that were not affected by the pension age increase.[10] In
aggregate, this analysis suggests that the pension changes boosted the participation rate by around
0.1 percentage point.
As I said above, some older workers are working for financial reasons. As we all know, one of the major
considerations for those contemplating retirement is their wealth and ability to fund their retirement.
Increasing house prices and share prices over much of the last decade are likely to have reduced
participation of older individuals.[11] The recent decline in house prices may have resulted in
some individuals delaying their retirement and not withdrawing their labour supply. However, the price
declines were modest compared to the earlier increase, so that those considering retirement would have
experienced a net gain in house prices and a decline in their debt.
Similar to females, the rise in the participation rate of persons aged 55 years or older is also
likely to have been related to developments in household debt. Over recent decades there has been a
trend towards greater indebtedness for these persons. The proportion of older households with
owner-occupied home loans has risen from around 20 per cent in the early 2000s to around
37 per cent today. The increase in debt has also been associated with a change in the
retirement intentions of older workers. Over time, the gradual shift towards later retirement has been
more noticeable for those with debt (Graph 7). As with the female participation story, there is a
question of causality. Are people working later in life because they have an unexpectedly high level of
debt? Or had they always intended to work longer and hence were more willing to borrow more and carry
more debt later in life?
Graph 7
To draw this together, participation rates have risen as employment has grown over the past three
years. This increase in supply has been unexpected, so it is important to try to understand what is
driving it to have some sense on how much further these trends are likely to run. The two major shifts
in participation have been amongst females aged 25–54 and older workers. These trends have
been there for a while and have been even stronger recently. I have presented some of the insights from
our analysis of various micro data sources but there is still more to understand. We will continue to
focus on this given its importance to the outlook, which I will come to later.
Employment
What sort of jobs have been created in recent years?
Some have assumed that the jobs that have been created in recent years are lower-skilled or lower-paid
jobs. However, when we break down the occupation-level data by skill type or pay level, this is not the
case. The strongest growth in employment over the past decade has been in highest-skilled (as defined by
the ABS) jobs. There has also been solid growth over the same period in lower-skilled jobs
(Graph 8). Similarly, the growth in employment has been broadly distributed across the pay spectrum
(Graph 9).
Graph 8
Graph 9
Another often stated view is that much of the job creation in recent years has been in the public
sector, rather than the private sector. According to the Labour Account data, the number of jobs created
in the private sector has far outnumbered the number of jobs created in the public sector
(Graph 10).[12] Private sector job creation has been particularly strong in health care and education
(which is partly, but a long way from entirely, due to government spending in these areas),
but also in business services and industries like construction and hospitality.
Graph 10
We have also used the micro data to look at the people that have moved into some of these growth areas.
For example, the share of employment in the health care & social assistance industry has increased
from 9 to 13 per cent over the past decade. Those entering or leaving health care and
social assistance tend to do so from a small number of other industries such as public administration,
support services, education and training and other services into health care and social assistance.
Around 10 per cent of people entering employment from outside the labour market are moving
into health care, while a slightly smaller share move into this sector from unemployment. A large share
of workers between the age of 55 and 69 years of age work in health care and social
assistance, so this is likely to be related to individuals delaying retirement.
Wages
Wages growth has declined noticeably since around 2012. As wages growth has fallen, the distribution of
wages growth has also become increasingly compressed. This fall in the dispersion in wages growth across
jobs mainly reflects a sharp fall in the share of jobs receiving ‘large’ wage rises. The
Bank has highlighted this previously, but I will update that analysis and illustrate the increased
pervasiveness of wage outcomes between 2 and 3 per cent across the labour market.[13]
The share of jobs that experience a wage change of more than 4 per cent has fallen from over
one-third in the late 2000s to less than 10 per cent of jobs in 2018 (Graph 11). Given
that firms are also unwilling or unable to reduce wages, this has meant that the vast majority of wage
growth observations in the labour market are now tightly clustered in the range of
0–4 per cent.
Graph 11
There is growing evidence to suggest that wage adjustments of 2 point something per cent have
now become the norm in Australia, rather than the 3–4 per cent wage increases that were
the norm prior to 2012. The rising prevalence of wage outcomes in the 2s can be seen in the official
data and in the Bank’s liaison with firms.
One notable example is the large increase in the share of enterprise bargaining agreements that provide
annual wage rises in the 2–3 per cent range. The share of such agreements has risen
from around 10 per cent over the 2000s to almost 60 per cent in 2019
(Graph 12). Over the same period, the proportion of agreements providing wage increases of
3 per cent or more has fallen sharply.
Graph 12
A similar picture emerges when we look at the job-level data that underlie the ABS’s wage price
index (WPI). These data, which also provide insights on wage outcomes for jobs where pay is set
according to individual arrangements, also show that the share of jobs getting wage rises in the
2–3 per cent mark has risen noticeably. The Bank’s liaison with firms also
confirms that the share of firms reporting wages growth of between 2 and 3 per cent has
increased to around 45 per cent in recent years. Prior to 2012, fewer than one in
10 firms were reporting wages growth in this range.
Another way to see this shift in wage setting over time is to look at the median rates of
wages growth across all jobs in the labour market (Graph 13). Unlike the mean, the median is less
affected by the large decline in ‘large’ wage rises in recent years and the changing
prevalence of wage freezes. Prior to 2012, median wages growth was firmly anchored at
4 per cent. In recent years, median wages growth has fallen to 2½ per cent, and
has remained at that level.
Graph 13
Different measures of wages growth capture slightly different concepts of labour costs. The WPI, which
is one of the main measures that the Bank monitors, tracks wage outcomes of individual jobs over time,
rather than tracking particular employees.[14] This feature of the WPI makes it useful for gauging
developments in wages growth after abstracting from any changes in the nature of work or the composition
of employment. However, this feature also means that the WPI does not capture wage rises that come from
getting promoted or changing firms.
But other surveys suggest that promotions can be a key source of earnings growth for individuals. On
average, a promotion leads to a 5 per cent boost in hourly wages, which is comparable to the
wage rise a worker gets when switching firms. Since 2012, there has been a broad-based decline in the
proportion of employees that are getting promoted at work or switching jobs (Graph 14). This means
that a smaller fraction of the workforce are receiving these wage rises.
Graph 14
Why have wage outcomes in the 2s become so prevalent?[15] One phenomenon that could explain it is the
well-known tendency for workers to resist reductions to their wages in real terms.[16] This
phenomenon, also known as ‘downward real wage rigidity’, leads to a clumping of
employees’ nominal wage changes in the vicinity of their expected rate of inflation, particularly
when nominal wages growth is tracking at a low level. In that sense, the RBA’s inflation target of
2–3 per cent on average over time provides a strong nominal anchor in wage
negotiations. When my colleagues looked at the job-level WPI data they did find evidence of a clumping
of wage outcomes either at, or just above, expected inflation.
While wage increases in the 2s have become very common for many employees, those whose wages are set
according to an award have generally been receiving wage increases in excess of 2 per cent in
recent years. This reflects the Fair Work Commission adjustments, which have provided support to wages
growth at the lower end of the skill distribution, given the prevalence of award-reliant jobs in this
part of the labour market. Wages growth for the least-skilled jobs has outpaced all other skill groups
since around 2013. This contrasts with the commodity price boom period, when wages growth was strongest
for higher-skilled jobs. Consistent with this, the ratio of average hourly earnings of award-reliant
employees to those of other employees has risen since 2012, largely reversing the falls seen in the
earlier period.
Outlook
The recent Statement on Monetary Policy provided the Bank’s latest forecasts for the
labour market and wages growth. GDP growth is forecast to gradually increase over the next couple of
years, which should result in a small decline in the unemployment rate from its current rate of
5¼ per cent. As Graph 15 shows, there is always uncertainty around that central
forecast. One of the key sources of uncertainty currently around the outlook for the unemployment rate
as well as wages growth, is whether labour supply will be as responsive to labour demand as it has been
in recent years. That is, will the expected increase in labour demand encourage as much participation as
it has most recently? How much further do some of these drivers of increased participation for older and
female workers have to run? That is a difficult question to answer.
Graph 15
The dynamics of participation and unemployment flows will have an important bearing on wages growth as
well as household income growth. We expect wages growth to remain largely unchanged at its current level
over the next couple of years.
Why don’t we think wages growth will pick up over the next couple of years? What we know from our
liaison program is that the proportion of firms expecting stable wages growth in the year ahead is
around 80 per cent and only around 10 per cent anticipate stronger wages growth. Of
those firms expecting stable wages growth, the share reporting wage growth outcomes of
2–3 per cent has steadily risen over time. This supports the case that lower wage rises
have become the new normal (Graph 16).
Graph 16
Recently there has been a rise in the proportion of new EBAs with a term of three years or more. The
lower wages growth incorporated in those agreements suggests that wages growth of around
2½ per cent for EBA-covered employees will persist for longer than in the past.
The more wages growth is entrenched in the 2s, the more likely it is that a sustained period of labour
market tightness will be necessary to move away from that. At the same time, I don’t think there is
much risk in the period ahead that aggregate wages growth will move any lower.
Conclusion
Today I have provided an overview of the current state of play in the labour market and the Bank’s
expectation about how it might evolve in the period ahead. I have highlighted some of the key forces
that have shaped these developments, in particular, the rise in the participation rates of female
workers and older workers. The Bank is trying to understand what has been driving these macro
developments using some newly available micro data sources. This greater understanding should help
inform our outlook for the labour market.
This increase in labour supply has meant that the strong employment outcomes in recent years has not
generated the pick-up in wages growth that might otherwise have occurred. At the same time, I have
highlighted the increased prevalence of wages growth in the 2s across the economy. A gradual lift in
wages growth would be a welcome development for the workforce and the economy. It is also needed for
inflation to be sustainably within the 2–3 per cent target range.
NAB has announced it will be taking part in the government’s first home loan deposit scheme, operational from 1 January 2020. Via Australian Broker.
The bank has been selected by the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) to offer mortgages under the scheme.
“We are proud to be chosen to partner with the federal government and
NHFIC,” said Mike Baird, NAB chief customer officer of consumer
banking.
“Every year our bankers help more than 15,000 Australians achieve
their dream of owning their first home. This scheme is a fantastic way
of helping even more customers, allowing them to potentially save
thousands of dollars on their mortgage.”
The scheme will provide 10,000 eligible Australians per year access
to a home loan with a deposit of as little as 5%. To implement the
scheme, the NHFIC will contract with a panel of selected lenders rather
than having direct contact with borrowers.
Before offering the guaranteed loans, lenders will need to update
their internal systems and train front-line lending staff on how to
apply the scheme eligibility criteria alongside regular considerations,
such as loan serviceability.
The NHFIC has communicated key considerations in its selection of
lender partners includes the loan products on offer, including interest
rates and other fees, as well as the quality of the customer experience.
According to Baird, NAB is the only major to have a special rate for
first homebuyers, which is currently 2.88% fixed for two years. The
major bank also emphasised it will not charge eligible customers higher
interest rates than equivalent customers outside of the scheme.
“We see this appointment as a great endorsement of NAB’s home loan
offering and our support of Australians looking to buy their own home
for the first time,” said Baird.
Before the scheme is live in the new year, customers are able to check their potential eligibility on the NHFIC website.
Financial system vulnerabilities remain elevated and more effort is required to ensure that the system remains resilient over the longer-term, Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says in releasing the November Financial Stability Report.
International risks to the
financial system have increased. Global growth has slowed amid continued
uncertainty about the outlook for world trade. This has resulted in reductions
in long-term interest rates to historic lows, including in New Zealand. While
necessary to maintain near-term inflation and employment objectives, prolonged
low interest rates can promote excess debt and investment risk-taking, and
overheat asset prices, Mr Orr says.
Mr Orr noted that the Reserve Bank’s Loan-to-Value Ratio (LVR) restrictions have been successful in reducing the more excessive household mortgage lending, thereby improving the resilience of banks to a significant deterioration in economic conditions.
But, there remains the risk that prolonged low interest rates could lead to a resurgence in higher-risk lending. As such, we have decided to leave the LVR restrictions at current levels at this point in time.
Mr Orr says the Reserve Bank
is committed to bolstering the long-term resilience of the financial system.
“Strong bank capital buffers are key to enabling banks to absorb losses and
continue operating when faced with unexpected developments. The Reserve Bank
has proposed increasing these buffers further with final decisions on the
Capital Review proposals to be announced on 5 December.”
Deputy Governor Geoff
Bascand says good governance and robust risk management processes within
financial institutions are important to maintain long term resilience. Our
recent reviews of banks and life insurers, and the number of recent breaches in
key regulatory requirements, reinforces the need for financial institutions to
improve their behaviour.
“We are engaging with
industry to ensure that they strengthen their own assurance processes and
controls. We have also reviewed our own supervisory strategy and will be taking
a more intensive approach, which will involve greater scrutiny of institutions’
compliance,” Mr Bascand says.
“Some life insurers have low
solvency buffers over minimum requirements. Recent falls in long-term interest
rates are putting further pressure on solvency ratios for some of these
insurers. Affected insurers are preparing plans to increase solvency ratios and
are subject to enhanced supervisory engagement. This highlights the need for
insurers to maintain strong buffers, and insurer solvency requirements will be
reviewed alongside an upcoming review of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision)
Act.”
Governor Philip Lowe spoke at the Australian Economists Dinner last night. In many ways, little new here, but the RBA thinks the zero bounds cash rate is 0.25%, and QE is an option, but only in a crisis. “There may come a point where QE could help promote our collective welfare, but we are not at that point and I don’t expect us to get there”.
He said: As I discussed in the Sir Leslie Melville lecture at the ANU a month ago, low interest rates are not a temporary phenomenon. Rather, they are likely to be with us for some time and are the result of some powerful global factors that are affecting interest rates everywhere.[1]
Given this assessment, it is not surprising that there is a lot of discussion internationally about the
use of so-called ‘unconventional’ monetary policies. People are rightly asking: if
interest rates are going to stay low and be constrained by a lower bound, what other monetary policy
options are there?
I have been part of these international discussions through chairing the Committee on the Global
Financial System (CGFS) at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. Last month, the Committee
published a report titled: ‘Unconventional Monetary Policy Tools: a Cross-country
Analysis’.[2] The report reviews the experience with the use of unconventional policy tools and
discusses how these tools can be used by central banks to achieve their objectives. If you are
interested in these issues and have not looked at the report, I encourage you to do so.
This evening I would like to summarise some key observations of the report and then explore how those
observations might be applied to Australia.
The CGFS Report – the ‘Unconventional’ Policy Tools
The report discusses four unconventional policy tools.
The term ‘unconventional’ monetary policy has now become the conventional shorthand for a
wide range of policies, although I am not sure it is the best terminology. I say this because most of
these tools have always been in the toolkit of central banks and have been used in one way or another in
the past. What has been unconventional over recent times is the way these tools have been
used.
Negative interest rates
The first of the four tools discussed in the report is negative policy rates.
This is one tool that is truly unconventional.
Prior to the financial crisis, it was widely thought that zero was the lower bound for the policy
interest rate – so it was common to talk about the ‘ZLB’, or the zero lower bound.
It was thought that if interest rates went below zero, people would hold their savings in banknotes
rather than be charged by their bank to deposit their money.
But zero has not turned out to be the constraint that it was once thought to be. So we now talk about
the ELB – the effective lower bound – not the ZLB. While countries with negative interest
rates have seen some shift to banknotes, it has been on a limited scale only. This reflects the use of
bank deposits for making transactions and the fact that most banks in countries with negative interest
rates have set a floor of zero on retail deposit rates. These banks have judged that it doesn’t
make sense, either commercially or politically, to charge households and small businesses negative
interest rates on their deposits.
It is worth pointing out that negative policy interest rates have largely been a European phenomenon.
Policy interest rates have been negative in the euro area, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. Rates have
been lowest in Switzerland, at minus ¾ per cent (Graph 1). The only country outside
of Europe that has had negative policy interest rates is Japan, but even there it is only a very small
share of bank reserves at the Bank of Japan that earns a negative rate, at
minus 0.1 per cent.
Graph 1
Extended liquidity operations
The second unconventional policy discussed in the report is the extended use of central bank liquidity
operations.
In response to the financial crisis, many central banks made significant changes to their normal market
operations to deal with strains in financial markets that were impairing the supply of credit to the
economy.
While the specifics differ across countries, the changes to market operations included: expanding the
range of collateral accepted; providing much larger amounts of liquidity; extending the maturity of
liquidity operations; increasing the range of eligible counterparties; and providing funding to banks at
below the cost that was then prevailing in highly stressed markets, sometimes on the condition that the
banks provide credit to businesses and households.
This graph shows the size of the extended liquidity operations of the major central banks
(Graph 2). The biggest operations were during the crisis period of 2008 and 2009, with significant
liquidity support also being provided in 2011 and 2012 to support bank lending during the European
sovereign debt crisis.
Graph 2
It is worth recalling that during these periods of stress, banks had become very nervous about their
access to liquidity. This, in turn, made them nervous about lending to others, making the possibility of
a severe credit crunch very real. By providing financial institutions with greater confidence about
their own access to liquidity, central banks were able to support the supply of credit to the economy.
The CGFS report recognises that there were some side-effects of doing this, but the strong conclusion of
the report is that these measures eased liquidity strains in highly stressed bank funding markets and
helped restore monetary transmission channels to the broader economy.
Asset purchases – quantitative easing
The third policy tool discussed in the report is the outright purchase of assets from the private
sector, paying for those assets by creating central bank reserves – also known as quantitative
easing or QE.
These asset purchases were on an unprecedented scale and led to very large expansions of central bank
balance sheets (Graph 3). Before the financial crisis, the major central banks owned securities
equivalent to around 5 per cent of GDP. In recent years, this has risen to nearly
30 per cent. This is a very large change.
Graph 3
As part of their QE programs, central banks bought a wide range of assets, but the main asset purchased
was government securities. Central banks now hold nearly 30 per cent of government securities
on issue, which is equivalent to around 20 per cent of GDP. The largest purchases have been
made by the Bank of Japan, which holds almost 50 per cent of Japanese government bonds on
issue.
In the United States, the Federal Reserve also bought large quantities of agency securities backed by
the US government. Elsewhere, central banks bought private securities such as covered bank bonds,
corporate bonds and commercial paper. And the Bank of Japan bought equities via exchange traded funds
(ETFs) and real estate investment trusts.
The precise motivations for these asset purchase programs varied across countries, but a common
motivation was to lower risk-free interest rates out along the term spectrum, well beyond the short-term
policy rate. Buying government bonds was seen as reinforcing policy rate cuts and/or acting as a
substitute for further reductions in the policy rate once it was at its lower bound. The expectation was
that lower risk-free rates would flow through to most interest rates in the economy, boost asset prices
and push down the exchange rate.
A related motivation for buying government securities was to reinforce market expectations that policy
rates were going to stay low for a long time. This ‘signalling channel’ added to the
downward pressure on long-term bond yields.
Another motivation in some countries was addressing problems in specific markets. In the United States,
for example, the Federal Reserve purchased government-backed agency securities to support mortgage
markets. And the Bank of England purchased commercial paper to ease highly stressed conditions in
corporate credit markets.
Finally, the expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet through money creation should, in
theory, have stimulatory effects through the so-called ‘portfolio balance channel’. The
idea here is that as the central bank purchases securities with bank reserves, investors seek to
rebalance their portfolios, and in so doing push up other asset prices and lower risk premiums for
borrowers. It is difficult, though, to isolate this effect from the other channels I just spoke
about.
Forward guidance
The fourth policy response was forward guidance.
This took two forms: calendar based and state based. Under calendar-based guidance, the central bank
makes an explicit commitment not to increase interest rates until a certain point in time. Under
state-based guidance, the central bank says it will not increase rates until specific economic
conditions are met. We have seen examples of both in practice. Some central banks also have provided
forward guidance regarding their asset purchase programs.
A primary motivation of forward guidance is to reinforce the central bank’s commitment to low
interest rates. A related motivation is to provide greater clarity about the central bank’s
reaction function and strategy in unusual times. The experience has mainly been positive, with the
guidance helping to reduce uncertainty. There are, however, some examples where a change in guidance
caused market volatility. The ‘taper tantrum’ in the United States in 2013 is an example
of this.
Some Observations
Before I discuss the relevance of all this to Australia, I would like to make three broad observations,
drawing on the report as well as my own reading of the evidence.
The first is that there is strong evidence that the various liquidity support measures and targeted
interventions in stressed markets were successful in calming things down and supporting the
economy.
When markets broke down and became dysfunctional, the actions of central banks helped stabilise the
situation and helped avoid a damaging gridlock in the financial system. They also helped contain risk
premiums in highly stressed markets. It is also worth pointing out that many of the measures to support
liquidity were successfully unwound once the job was done – so they proved to be temporary,
rather than a permanent intervention.
The CGFS report also documents the positive effects of some of the other unconventional measures. In
general, though, I find this evidence less compelling. These various measures certainly pushed down
long-term yields and provided monetary stimulus in the depths of the crisis when it was needed. But
these extraordinary measures have continued way past the crisis period. In some countries, asset
purchases have yet to be unwound and it remains unclear when, and even if, this will happen. So a full
evaluation is not yet possible.
This brings me to my second general observation. And that is that there have been some side-effects of
the various unconventional measures. I will touch on a few of these that the CGFS report discusses.
The first is that the extensive use of unconventional monetary tools can change the incentives of
others in the system, perhaps in an unhelpful way.
It is possible that the willingness of a central bank to provide liquidity reduces the incentive for
financial institutions to hold their own adequate buffers, making episodes of stress more likely in the
future.[3]
It is also possible that the willingness of a central bank to use its full range of policy instruments
might create an inaction bias by other policymakers, either the prudential regulators or the fiscal
authorities. If this were the case, it could lead to an over-reliance on monetary policy.
A second side-effect is the impact on bank lending and the efficient allocation of resources.
Persistently low or negative interest rates and a flattening of the yield curve can damage bank
profitability, leading to less capacity to lend. In some countries, there are concerns that low interest
rates allow less-productive (zombie) firms to survive. There are also financial stability risks that can
come from low interest rates boosting asset prices (and perhaps borrowing) at a time of weak economic
growth.
A third side-effect is a possible blurring of the lines between monetary and fiscal policy. If the
central bank is buying large amounts of government debt at zero interest rates, this could be seen as
money-financed government spending. In some circumstances, this could damage the credibility of a
country’s institutional arrangements and create political tensions. Political tensions can also
arise if the central bank’s asset purchases are seen to disproportionality benefit banks and
wealthy people, at the expense of the person in the street. This perception has arisen in some countries
despite the strong evidence that the various monetary measures supported both jobs and income growth and
thereby helped the entire community.
These are all side-effects we need to take seriously.
The third general observation is that experience suggests that a package of measures works best, with
clear communication that enhances credibility. Exactly what that package looks like varies from country
to country and depends upon the specific circumstances. But clear communication from the central bank
about its objectives and its approach is always important.
The report also notes that there may be better solutions than monetary policy to solving the problems
of the day. It reminds us that when there are problems on the supply-side of the economy, the use of
structural and fiscal policies will sometimes be the better approach. We need to remember that monetary
policy cannot drive longer-term growth, but that there are other arms of public policy than can
sustainably promote both investment and growth.
Application to Australia
I would now like to turn to what this all implies for us in Australia.
I will make five sets of observations.
The first is that the Reserve Bank has long had flexible market operations that allow us to ensure
adequate liquidity in Australian financial markets. We have used this flexibility in the past,
particularly during the global financial crisis, and we are prepared to use it again in periods of
stress if necessary.[4]
At the moment, though, Australia’s financial markets are operating normally and our financial
institutions are able to access funding on reasonable terms. In any given currency, the Australian banks
can raise funds at the same price as other similarly rated financial institutions around the world, and
markets are not stressed. So there is no need to change our normal market operations to do anything
unconventional here. Having said that, if markets were to become dysfunctional, you can be reassured by
the fact that we have both the capacity and willingness to respond. But this is not the situation we are
currently in. Things are operating normally.
The second observation is that negative interest rates in Australia are extraordinarily unlikely.
We are not in the same situation that has been faced in Europe and Japan. Our growth prospects are
stronger, our banking system is in much better shape, our demographic profile is better and we have not
had a period of deflation. So we are in a much stronger position.
More broadly, though, having examined the international evidence, it is not clear that the experience
with negative interest rates has been a success. While negative rates have put downward pressure on
exchange rates and long-term bond yields, they have come with other effects too. It has become
increasingly apparent that negative rates create strains in parts of the banking system that can impair
the ability of some banks to provide credit. Negative interest rates also create problems for pension
funds that need to fund long-term liabilities. In addition, there is evidence that they can encourage
households to save more and spend less, especially when people are concerned about the possibility of
lower income in retirement. A move to negative interest rates can also damage confidence in the general
economic outlook and make people more cautious.
Given these considerations, it is not surprising that some analysts now talk about the ‘reversal
interest rate’ – that is, the interest rate at which lower rates become contractionary,
rather than expansionary.[5] While we take the possibility of a reversal rate seriously, I am confident that
here, in Australia, we are still a fair way from it. Conventional monetary policy is still working in
Australia and we see the evidence of this in the exchange rate, in asset prices and in the boost to
aggregate household disposable income.
My third observation is that we have no appetite to undertake outright purchases of private sector
assets as part of a QE program.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that there is no sign of dysfunction in our capital
markets that would warrant the Reserve Bank stepping in. The second is that the purchase of private
assets by the central bank, financed through money creation, represents a significant intervention by a
public sector entity into private markets. It comes with a whole range of complicated governance issues
and would insert the Reserve Bank very directly into decisions about resource allocation in the economy.
While there are some scenarios where such intervention might be considered, those scenarios are not on
our radar screen.
My fourth point is that if – and it is important to emphasise the word
if – the Reserve Bank were to undertake a program of quantitative easing, we would
purchase government bonds, and we would do so in the secondary market. An important advantage in buying
government bonds over other assets is that the risk-free interest rate affects all asset prices and
interest rates in the economy. So it gets into all the corners of the financial system, unlike
interventions in just one specific private asset market.
If we were to move in this direction, it would be with the intention of lowering risk-free interest
rates along the yield curve. As with the international experience, this would work through two channels.
The first is the direct price impact of buying government bonds, which lowers their yields. And the
second is through market expectations or a signalling effect, with the bond purchases reinforcing the
credibility of the Reserve Bank’s commitment to keep the cash rate low for an extended period.
Currently, the government bond yield curve sits around 20 basis points above the overnight indexed
swaps (OIS) curve, which represents the market’s average expectation of the future monetary policy
rate (Graph 4). Purchasing government securities could compress this differential and could also
flatten the OIS curve through the expectations effect I just mentioned. A lower term premium would lower
borrowing costs for both governments and private borrowers, and would bring the benefits that come with
that. An exchange rate effect could also be expected.
Graph 4
Our current thinking is that QE becomes an option to be considered at a cash rate of
0.25 per cent, but not before that. At a cash rate of 0.25 per cent, the interest
rate paid on surplus balances at the Reserve Bank would already be at zero given the corridor system we
operate. So from that perspective, we would, at that point, be dealing with zero interest rates.[6]
My fifth, and final, point is that the threshold for undertaking QE in Australia has not been reached,
and I don’t expect it to be reached in the near future.
In my view, there is not a smooth continuum running from interest rate reductions to quantitative
easing. It is a bigger step to engage in money-financed asset purchases by the central bank than it is
to cut interest rates.
There are, however, circumstances where QE could help. The international experience is that in stressed
market conditions, the central bank can help stabilise the situation by buying government securities.
That experience also suggests that QE does put additional downward pressure on both interest rates and
the exchange rate. In considering the case for QE, we would need to balance these positive effects with
possible side-effects.
We would also need to consider the effects on market functioning. We are conscious that government
securities play a crucial role as collateral in some of our financial markets. Given the limited supply
of government debt on issue, the Reserve Bank and APRA have already had to put in place special
liquidity arrangements for the banking system. We are also conscious that the Australian
government’s fiscal position means that the gross stock of government debt is projected to decline
relative to the size of the economy over the years ahead. These considerations are not impediments to
undertaking QE, but we would need to take them into account.
It is a reasonable question to ask what might be the threshold to undertake QE in Australia.
It is difficult to be precise, but QE would be considered if there were an accumulation of evidence
that, over the medium term, we were unlikely to achieve our objectives. In particular, if we were moving
away from, rather than towards, our goals for both full employment and inflation, the purchase of
government securities would be on the agenda of the Board. In this world, I would hope other public
policy options were also on the country’s agenda.
At the moment, though, we are expecting progress towards our goals over the next couple of years and
the cash rate is still above the level at which we would consider buying government securities. So QE is
not on our agenda at this point in time.
It is important to remember that the economy is benefiting from the already low level of interest
rates, recent tax cuts, ongoing spending on infrastructure, the upswing in housing prices in some
markets and a brighter outlook for the resources sector. Given the significant reductions in interest
rates over the past six months and the long and variable lags, the Board has seen it as appropriate to
hold the cash rate steady as it assesses the growth momentum both here and elsewhere around the world.
The Board is also committed to maintaining interest rates at low levels until it is confident that
inflation is sustainably within the 2 to 3 per cent target range.
The central scenario for the Australian economy remains for economic growth to pick up from here, to
reach around 3 per cent in 2021. This pick-up in growth should see a reduction in the
unemployment rate and a lift in inflation. So we are expecting things to be moving in the right
direction, although only gradually.
The Board continues to discuss what role it can play in ensuring that this progress takes place and how
it might be accelerated. It recognises the benefits that would come from faster progress, but it also
recognises the limitations of monetary policy and the importance of keeping a medium-term perspective
squarely focused on maximising the economic welfare of the people of Australia. There may come a point
where QE could help promote our collective welfare, but we are not at that point and I don’t expect
us to get there.
Kevin Rudd has warned Australia is too “China dependent” in economic terms, and must diversify its international economic engagement. Via The Conversation.
Setting out principles he believes should govern the way forward in
dealing with China, the former prime minister said for too long
Australia had been “complacent in anticipating and responding to the
profound geo-political changes now washing over us with China’s rise,
America’s ambivalence about its future regional and global role, and an
Australia which may one day find itself on its own”.
Launching journalist Peter Hartcher’s Quarterly Essay, Red Flag:
Waking up to China’s challenge, Rudd said Australia needed a
regularly-updated “classified cabinet-level national China strategy”.
This should be based on three understandings. The first was that
“China respects strength and consistency and is contemptuous of weakness
and prevarication”.
The others went to awareness of China’s strengths and weaknesses, and
of Australia’s own strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Rudd, who was highly critical of the government, declared “Australia
needs a more mature approach to managing the complexity of the
relationship than having politicians out-competing one another on who
can sound the most hairy-chested on China”. This might be great domestic
politics but did not advance the country’s security and economic
interests.
Australia should “maintain domestic vigilance against any substantive
rather than imagined internal threats” to its political institutions
and critical infrastructure.
He fully supported the foreign influence transparency act, but he
warned about concern over foreign interference translating “into a form
of racial profiling”.
“These new arrangements on foreign influence transparency should be
given effect as a legal and administrative process, not as a populist
witch-hunt” – a return to the “yellow peril” days.
Rudd said Australia must once again become the international champion
of the South Pacific nations, arguing the government’s posture on
climate change had undermined Australia’s standing with these countries
and given China a further opening. “The so-called ‘Pacific step-up’ is
hollow.”
Australia should join ASEAN, Rudd said; this would both help that
body and assist Australia to manage its long term relationship with
Indonesia.
On the need to diversify Australia’s international economic
engagement, Rudd said: “We have become too China-dependent. We need to
diversify further to Japan, India, Indonesia, Europe and Africa – the
next continent with a rising middle class with more than a billion
consumers. We must equally diversify our economy itself.”
Rudd argued strongly for Australia to continue to consolidate its alliance with the United States.
But “Australia must also look to mid-century when we may increasingly
have to stand to our own two feet, with or without the support of a
major external ally.
“Trumpist isolationism may only be short term. But how these
sentiments in the American body politic translate into broader American
politics with future Republican and Democrat administrations remains
unclear.”
Rudd once again strongly urged a “big Australia” – “a big and
sustainable Australia of the type I advocated while I was in office.
“That means comprehensive action on climate change and broader environmental sustainability,” he said.
“Only a country with a population of 50 million later this century would begin to have the capacity to fund the military, security and intelligence assets necessary to defend our territorial integrity and political sovereignty long term. This is not politically correct. But it’s yet another uncomfortable truth.”
Author: Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
As the member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank responsible for cash management, I arguably very much represent what many of you may consider the “”old world of payments””. A world in which there is limited space for innovation and progress. A world that is generally high in risk but low in reward. That is what is often claimed, at least.
In giving you my European and my German perspective, in particular, let me tell you: this case is not as straightforward as it may seem. In Germany and the euro area at large, the circulation of cash remains on the rise. The Bundesbank has issued more than half of the value of euro banknotes currently in circulation. Handling and distributing cash is a major operational task performed by national central banks in the euro area – particularly the Bundesbank. This also means that we need to continue investing in our cash infrastructure.
Cash serves various economic functions – making payments is just one of them. Our estimates suggest that roughly one out of ten banknotes issued by the Bundesbank is used for making payments in Germany. This limits the size of the pie that is up for grabs by the various non-cash payment alternatives.
Let us focus on cash as a payment instrument nonetheless. Usage of cash as a means of payment is declining – this is true both internationally and in Germany. But the level of cash usage is still high in many countries – and especially so in Germany. There may be less cash around, but we are far from being cashless. So why is it that, as of yet, physical cash has not disappeared beneath the waves in the vast ocean of digital payment methods?
2. Cash as an independent means of payment
In my view, this has to do with the special features that cash offers. We regularly monitor payment behaviour in Germany to understand households’ motives for using particular forms of payment over others. Protection against financial loss, personal privacy and a clear overview of spending are crucial features that households expect from payment instruments. Cash scores favourably in all of these areas, according to our surveys. My interpretation of these results: German households value independence – and physical cash offers three unique forms of independence, which distinguishes it from digital payment systems.
First, independence from one’s socio-economic background. Cash is tactile and does not require any technical equipment. The use of cash is easily understood across the generational divide. It is this haptic nature of cash, which, in my view, is an important element of strengthening financial inclusion. Ensuring access to cash may be particularly relevant in rural areas with insufficient banking or technological infrastructures. Cash is, in that sense, also a means of safeguarding social cohesion.
Second, independence from technological ecosystems. Given the still fragmented payments landscape in Europe, cash currently remains the one truly universal means of payment when it comes to P2P transactions in the euro area. Fintech companies are shaking up the traditional banking system in Europe. These companies can often leverage their global reach and huge customer base. This may bring benefits for consumers, for instance regarding cross-border payments. But it also means that customers are becoming locked into particular payment ecosystems. Cash offers an easy way out, at least for certain transactions.
Third, independence from social control and data collection. As legal tender, cash is fully backed by the domestic central bank. Cash is the obvious choice of payment method when it comes to personal privacy. This strengthens individual freedom. At the end of the day, digital payment systems work by using personal data. Collecting data is not harmful per se. But in the age of Big Data, collecting detailed data means obtaining valuable information which, in turn, makes it possible to construct patterns of individual behaviour. From a consumer protection point of view, the question arises as to how much information is necessary to carry out a particular transaction. From an economic point of view, personal data may be seen as an additional source of transaction costs to be factored in when comparing the underlying cost structures of different payment methods.
3. Retailing – the source of future transformations?
Payment methods tend to evolve in stages. For example, the adoption of mobile payment solutions is typically preceded by the widespread use of credit and debit cards. This is the case in Germany, where contactless payments have just started to catch on. China, on the other hand, seems to be a case in its own right. A comparative study in China and Germany supports this. The evidence reported there for the year 2017 suggests that cash and debit card payments account for the bulk of German retailers’ revenue. Mobile-based payment solutions did not play a noticeable role at that time. The reverse picture emerges for Chinese consumers in major cities. Third-party mobile payment providers clearly dominate here, having leapfrogged debit and credit card payments.
Payment habits in China are still in a state of flux as payment technologies continue to evolve. Seamless payment methods are on the rise. These methods essentially try to counter the “pain of paying” with a physical smile. To what extent similar shopping experiences are becoming popular in Germany remains to be seen. There are serious concerns surrounding data protection, and these would need to be alleviated first. In my view, the transition towards a society with less cash has to be driven by the user and not the supplier. It appears that, at least in Germany, consumers value the existing diversity of payment options. Cash continues to be an important part of this. In the bank-centred financial system in Germany, commercial banks are a major actor in the provision of a payment infrastructure that can cater for both cash and its digital alternatives.
Retailing in Germany is transforming, too. On the one hand, German retailers are increasingly turning to Chinese providers of mobile payment solutions, with a particular view to increasing sales to Chinese tourists. On the other hand, retailers have also increased the scope of their activities by closing the cash cycle in Germany. Nowadays, more and more shops are providing basic banking services for their customers such as cash withdrawals and deposits at the counters. To me, this shows that the transformation of the payments landscape is anything but complete.
4 CBDC as a cash substitute?
In the digital era, it should not be surprising that central banks, too, are discussing the potential merits and drawbacks of digital forms of a central bank currency (CBDC). There are currently many operational issues relating to CBDC that remain unresolved. This pertains, for example, to the technology implemented. Blockchains and the underlying distributed ledger technology seem promising, and central banks are open to them in principle. There are several potential use cases in settlement and payment systems, for instance, which are worth exploring further. But handling and safely storing vast amounts of data does not necessarily require distributed ledgers. We need to understand the underlying technologies better in terms of operational risk.
Also, the exact set-up of a CBDC needs to be thought through as the specifications may determine the potential effects. Broadly speaking, there are two conceivable variants of a CBDC. The wholesale type restricts access to CBDC to selected financial market participants for a specific purpose. The retail type, on the other hand, could grant domestic or even non-domestic non-banks access to CBDC on a wide scale.
The wholesale variant may be seen as an improvement on existing structures in terms of processing securities trading and foreign exchange transactions, but it would have little or no effect on monetary policy. The retail variant, however, could potentially mean a paradigm shift in the economic relationships between households, commercial banks and central banks that have evolved to date. uch a fundamental shift is not free of risks, and it requires careful consideration.
There is also the question of how strong households’ appetite for such a form of CBDC would actually be. This user perspective should not be left out in the discussion.
We need to see matters in perspective. After all, many of these debates have been fuelled by the plans announced by the Libra consortium. To me, what this shows, first and foremost, is the need to offer fast and cost-efficient systems for cross-border payments. We should go one step at a time. There are already several innovative market solutions that have the potential to be transformed into an efficient pan-European digital payment solution. In addition SEPA instant credit transfers could serve as a basis for pan-European payment solutions. We should develop these systems further before contemplating further, more radical steps.
5. Conclusion
The old world of payments versus the new world. This story is not new. At the turn of the millennium, there was a strong admiration for what was referred to as the new economy in Germany. New economy was a term used to describe internet start-ups which often relied on little physical capital to generate, at times, staggering market valuations. This was in contrast to the old economy. Think of brick-and-mortar car plants with, in some cases, considerable overheads. At this point, we can say that “”the new has become a bit old and the old has become a bit new””. Economic structures have integrated. The basic market forces still apply: the companies that survive are those that are competitive and offer a unique product. I view the world of payments in very much that spirit. To me, digital payments offer exciting prospects. But that does not necessarily imply the extinction of existing payment methods. It may very well actually increase the diversity of payment methods. Cash offers these unique forms of independence from social and electronic networks, which suggests to me that it will continue to enjoy great popularity in the euro area.
