35 For example, Albertazzi, Becker and Boucinha (2018) show evidence of the portfolio rebalancing channel from the ECB’s asset purchase programme. 30  7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  7  New, highly granular data are also coming on stream on payment, credit and banking flows. Some of these have been used to help predict, or track, movements in economic activity. They have had some success. For example, in the US a dataset of over 12 billion credit and debit card transactions over a 34 month period 36  has recently been used to analyse consumption patterns by age, firm size, metropolitan area and sector. In time, it is possible these sorts of data could help to create a real-time map of financial and activity flows across the economy, in much the same way as is already done for flows of traffic or information or weather. Once mapped, there would then be scope to model and, through policy, modify these flows. This is an idea I 37  first talked about six years ago. Today, it looks closer than ever to being within our grasp. These are all areas where DAFM could contribute importantly to efforts to improve the quality and timeliness of data on the macro-economy and financial system. As is well-recognised, the scope for improvements in 38  the quality of National Accounts data is considerable. And those measurement challenges will only  become greater as we move towards an increasingly digital and service-oriented economy.
Inflation and Monetary Policy Outlook  Now, I would like to present our inflation and output gap forecasts based on the outlook I have described so far. When forming our forecasts, we assumed that the tight monetary policy stance will be sustained for a while; and consequently, annualized loan growth rate will hover around 15 percent and the Turkish lira will display a mild appreciation trend. Accordingly, inflation is expected to be, with 70 percent probability, between 5.1 and 7.9 percent with a mid-point of 6.5 percent at the end of 2012, and between 3.3 and 6.9 percent with a mid-point of 5.1 percent at the end of 2013. We expect inflation to stabilize around 5 percent in the medium term (Chart 17). Chart 17. Inflation and Output Gap Forecasts  * Shaded region indicates the 70 percent confidence interval for the forecast. Overall, although demand and cost conditions have not changed notably since the publication of the October Report, we revised our inflation forecasts for end-2012 upwards due to higher initial point (the initial point referring to the latest inflation data before the forecast period) resulting from higher-than-expected inflation during the past three months. As elaborated on in the Report as well, cumulative increases in the exchange rate and commodity prices coupled with soaring unprocessed food prices and the developments in administered prices pushed inflation to high levels in 2011. We estimate that inflation will remain flat in the first quarter and exhibit a gradual downtrend starting from the second quarter (Chart 17).