A decades long downward move in UK gilt yields has led to a fall in the interest rate used to discount future cashflows and increased the value of UK defined benefit pension fund liabilities. Many pension fund trustees, faced with the considerable risk that the value of assets held by funds would not increase commensurately, adopted liability driven investment strategies. Not for the first time, financial engineering has come unstuck due to implementation issues when the theory is taken too far.
Major central banks cool on retail CBDC By Philip Middleton It may be some time before we see the introduction of a retail central bank digital currency in a major economy outside China or India. One reason is that the world’s central banks are dealing with urgent issues relating to macroeconomics and financial stability.Â
 MEETINGS Energy security and the economic outlook in Europe Tuesday 11 October, Roundtable As European countries seek to phase out Russian energy from their domestic markets, Jörg Kukies, state secretary at the German Chancellery and G7 and G20 sherpa, discusses Germany’s approach to energy diversification and security, market stability and curbing price rises.Â
 ON DEMAND Nature risk and the role of central banks Saskia de Vries, head of the international financial architecture department at the financial stability division of De Nederlandsche Bank, speaks with OMFIF’s Emma McGarthy about the role of central banks in driving nature-related risk mitigation.
 LATEST REPORT Blockchain for public finance In collaboration with EY, this report studies the degree to which digital technology could improve the efficiency and transparency of public finance management.
