William C Dudley: Brief remarks about the centennial “The Fed at 100” Exhibit Introductory remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Museum of American Finance, New York City, 25 September 2013. *  *  *  Thank you all for being here to commemorate the opening of the centennial exhibit for the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the Museum of American Finance, just a few blocks from the New York Fed’s landmark head office at 33 Liberty Street. I would like to say thank you to our friends at the Museum for their work and interest in the Fed and for supporting us in organizing this event. Before making some brief remarks about the centennial, I would also like to acknowledge some of the people in attendance tonight. We have two former New York Fed presidents here this evening: Jerry Corrigan and Bill McDonough. I met Jerry, the seventh president of the Bank, when I was still wet behind the ears. I was just out of graduate school at the Board of Governors in Washington, but Jerry was already a force to be reckoned with and a part of Paul Volcker’s inner circle. Jerry’s tenure as president had many memorable moments, including the October 1987 stock market “break”.
Benoît Cœuré: Interview with Politico Interview with Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, and Politico, conducted by Mr Pierre Briançon on 23 March 2016, and published on 30 March 2016. *  *  *  The last Governing Council meeting on 10 March seemed to be marked by some ambiguity on negative interest rates. On the one hand, the message was that rates wouldn’t get much lower. On the other, there was the signal that there could be exceptions… The question we are always trying to address is how to design our policy so that it is effective in the situation we face at a given moment. The package announced on 10 March was very potent, both in intensity and in sheer volume. Negative interest rates are not our main instrument, they just support our overall policy. And looking ahead, we’re not short of instruments – our choice is quite large. We will be able to deal with adverse situations if necessary. You indicated that the ECB wasn’t deaf to the banking sector’s concerns about the impact of negative rates on banks’ profitability. Banks’ profitability has improved when you look at the global overall impact of our monetary policy, that is, stronger credit demand and lower risk in the economy. And, as a matter of fact, the interest margin of banks has gone up, not down. Of course, the impact is different depending on banks’ business models and on how negative the rates are.