Quarterly Bulletin - 2024

Our Quarterly Bulletin explores topics on monetary and financial stability and includes regular commentary on market developments and UK monetary policy operations.

Latest articles

Measuring climate-related financial risks using scenario analysis

Published 17 April 2024

Climate change – through both physical impacts and the effects of economies transitioning to net zero – poses financial risks in both the short and long term. These risks are relevant to a wide range of institutions across the financial system. This includes the Bank of England, given its significant financial operations. However, these risks are challenging to quantify, which could limit financial institutions’ abilities to mitigate against these risks into the future. This article explores how central banks and financial institutions can use scenario analysis to quantify these risks. It focuses on how financial institutions can ‘extend’ macro-climate scenarios to undertake granular asset-level analysis of financial risks, drawing on examples across sovereign bonds, corporate bonds and residential mortgages. It also discusses how scenario analysis outputs can be applied to financial institutions’ existing financial modelling toolkits. While scenario analysis applied in this way is at the cutting edge of climate financial risk measurement, it is still subject to a number of limitations.

Measuring climate-related financial risks using scenario analysis

 

Identifying barriers to productive investment and external finance: a survey of UK SMEs

Published 11 March 2024

This Bulletin documents the findings from a finance and investment decisions survey run by the Bank of England in 2023, in collaboration with the Department for Business and Trade. The survey was completed by 2,885 small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The novelty of the survey is that it links SME’s access to finance and their financing decisions to their investment choices. Furthermore, it also delves into the relatively less explored issue of credit demand that could play a determining role in SME investment decisions.

Identifying barriers to productive investment and external finance: a survey of UK SMEs

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