In contrast to earlier periods of sharply rising oil prices, the main reason behind the current rise in oil prices is a surge in demand and limited excess production capacity. Growth in oil demand has been particularly strong in regions where production is relatively energy-intensive, such as China and other non-OECD countries. China alone accounts for about 1/3 of global growth in oil demand this year. Moreover, there has been a marked reduction in excess production capacity in OPEC countries. Small production problems have therefore affected prices more than would otherwise have been the case. In the short term, oil prices constitute the greatest risk to the outlook for the global economy. High oil prices may contribute to a sharper-than-expected slowdown in global economic growth. This could in turn result in lower demand and lower commodity prices. High oil prices have mixed effects on the Norwegian economy. Lower demand abroad will have a negative impact on parts of the Norwegian economy. At the same time, domestic demand is normally stimulated by higher petroleum investment. The balance in the Norwegian foreign exchange market will not be affected to any appreciable extent. So far, the effects of high oil prices on developments in the real economy have been relatively limited. Credit developments in the past year have given ambiguous signals to our interest-rate setting. Growth in household debt is high. Enterprises have been reducing their debt for some time, but developments over the past months may suggest that this trend has been reversed.
7/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  An Open API Architecture And saving the best for the end: creating an API economy. APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are likely to be one of the most important building blocks for innovation in the future economy. APIs are basically a set of protocols that define how one system or application interacts with another, usually from the perspective of information exchange. They allow systems to interact with one another without the need for human intervention. Publishing these APIs allows FIs to collaborate with external users to: – seamlessly merge multiple data sets from different sources into an integrated rich data set; and – deliver more functional and customised solutions faster and cheaper. MAS aims to establish Singapore as a centre of excellence for APIs on financial services. We are actively pushing FIs to develop and adopt APIs, and to offer as many of them as possible to the broader community. APIs are the essential ‘plumbing’ – the pipes – that enable the connections and collaborations that foster innovation. The financial industry has come together, in partnership with MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore, to develop guidance on APIs. I am pleased to announce that we will publish today what we call the “Finance-as-a-Service API Playbook”. The API Playbook provides guidance on common and useful APIs that FIs could make available. For instance: Many of us struggle today to track and use our rewards points on our credit cards issued by various banks before they expire.