2  BIS Review 89/2006  The Reserve Bank has recently issued draft guidelines to banks with the objective of graduating from the current maturity ladder approach prevalent in most banks to a duration gap approach. The later approach makes it possible for banks to calculate the modified duration of assets and liabilities, the duration gap and duration of equity.
As of January of this year, we had recovered just over one-third of the payroll jobs we lost, and the unemployment rate was still elevated at 8.3 percent. As you might expect, the slow recovery in the labor market has been mirrored in only a modest recovery in households’ wage and salary income.