Methodology
This section contains methodologies, including general notes, standards and manuals used by the European System of Central Banks to collect data and compile statistics.
ECB/Eurosystem policy statistics include a wide range of key statistics for official interest rate, minimum reserves and liquidity, Eurosystem balance sheet, banknotes and coins, TARGET balances of participating NCBs and exchange rates:
TARGET balances of participating NCBs
Eurosystem balance sheet comprises the assets and liabilities of euro area NCBs and the ECB. It is published on a weekly basis (consolidated financial statement) and on an annual basis (consolidated balance sheet).The disaggregated data provide harmonised information about the decentralised implementation of the single monetary policy of the ECB, as well as about the non-monetary policy financial activities of the euro area NCBs. The data are published on a monthly basis, both as contributions to the consolidated financial statement of the Eurosystem (from June 2016), and as contributions to the Eurosystem statistical balance sheet (from January 1999).
Minimum reserves and liquidity includes statistics on euro area banks minimum reserves requirement holdings in their current accounts at their national central bank. A bank’s minimum reserve requirement is set for six-week maintenance periods. The level of reserves is calculated on the basis of the bank’s balance sheet before the start of the maintenance period. The annual and quarterly data on minimum reserve requirements refer to averages of the last maintenance period of the year/quarter. As of 10 March 2004 maintenance periods start on the settlement day of the main refinancing operation (MRO) following the Governing Council’s assessment of the monetary policy stance.
Exchange rates includes amongst other reference and spot rates, which are are euro foreign exchange rates observed on major foreign exchange trading venues at a certain point in time. The purpose of effective exchange rates (EERs) and harmonised competitiveness indicators (HCIs) is to provide meaningful and comparable measures of euro area countries' price and cost competitiveness.
These statistics comprise information from the balance sheets of credit institutions, money market funds, euro area national central banks and the ECB, which together make up the Monetary Financial Institutions (MFI) sector.
Monetary aggregates and counterparts are derived from the euro area MFIs’ consolidated balance sheets and take account of some central government monetary assets/liabilities. Monetary aggregates comprise short-term liabilities vis-à-vis the money holding sector (i.e. non-MFI euro area residents, excluding central government).
MFI aggregated balance sheet statistics include aggregated balance sheets of the Monetary and Financial Institution (MFI) sector. The MFI sector includes central banks, credit institutions, money market funds (MMFs), and e-money institutions and deposit-taking corporations other than credit institutions that are covered under the MFI definition. In this section, assets and liabilities are presented at aggregated level for the euro area as a whole, euro area Member States and other EU Member States non-participating in the euro area.
Credit institutions and money market funds section contains aggregated balance sheet statistics on credit institutions (CIs) and money market funds (MMFs), which are subsectors of the MFI sector. The dataset covers the euro area as a whole and euro area Member States.
Electronic money statistics cover schemes involving the electronic storage of monetary value on technical devices used for making payments.
Estimated MFI loans by economic activity covers MFI loans to non-financial corporations, broken down by economic activity and estimated based on national sources.
The statistics in this section focus on balance sheets of financial corporations other than monetary financial institutions, which are presented under “Money, credit and banking”. Non-monetary financial institutions comprise financial vehicle corporations (FVCs), investment funds other than money market funds (non-MMF investment funds), insurance corporations (ICs) and pension funds (PFs). The data on non-MFIs complement monetary statistics, especially regarding the financing and financial investment of non-financial corporations and households. Statistics on the balance sheets of FVCs, non-MMF investment funds, insurance corporations and pension funds are analysed in the context of financial stability and systemic risks.
Financial vehicle corporations balance sheet statistics cover securities loans originated by MFIs and non-MFIs, securitised assets other than loans, synthetic securitisation and FVC liabilities.
Financial corporations engaged in lending contains statistics on the assets and liabilities of euro area financial corporations engaged in lending (OFI dataset).
Investment funds statistics on the balance sheets of non-MMFs investment funds are presented by investment policy of the fund and by type of fund (open-end or closed-end).
Insurance corporations statistics includes information related to their balance sheets (ICB and discontinued ICPF dataset) and data on premiums written, claims incurred and acquistion expenses (ICO dataset). The information for the ICB and ICO datasets are available by type of insurance (reinsurance, life, non-life, and composite insurance corporations). Data on ICs also include risk indicators collected from 93 EEA insurance groups that report under the Solvency II regime (LIG - large insurance groups). Aggregated data are available by types of businesses (life business, non-life business, total business).
Pension funds statistics on pension funds comprise the main categories in their balance sheets (PFBR and the discontinued PFB and ICPF datasets) and data on members of pension funds (PFBM).
List of financial institutions publishes lists of MFIs, FVCs and non-MMF investment funds.
Structural financial indicators feature structural indicators of the banking industry for all EU countries.
Bank interest rates consist of data on interest rates that resident monetary financial institutions (MFIs) except central banks and money market funds apply to the euro-denominated deposits of, and loans to, households and non-financial corporations resident in the euro area, as well as data on the volumes involved. The bank interest rate statistics are published in a monthly press release on the 23 rd working day after the end of the reference month.
Long-term interest rate statistics relate to interest rates for long-term government bonds denominated in Euro for euro area Member States and in national currencies for Member States that have not adopted the Euro at the time of publication. The long-term interest rate statistics are released monthly on the ECB website on the 8th working day of the month.
Securities issues statistics cover the issuance of securities other than shares (i.e. debt securities) and of listed shares by euro area residents. The statistics relate to outstanding amounts (stocks), transactions (gross issuance, redemptions and net issuance) and growth rates.
Securities Holdings Statistics provide information on securities held by euro area resident sectors, broken down by instrument type and selected issuer countries.
Short-term European Paper (STEP) statistics provide information on primary market volumes of, and yields on, short-term debt securities issued in the context of programmes that have received the STEP label from the STEP Market Committee. STEP statistics are published on the ECB website and in the Statistical Data Warehouse at weekly intervals.
Yield curves provide the results of the daily estimation of euro area and national government bond yield curves. It also derives forward and par yield curves for each estimated curve. The euro-area yield curves are published on a daily basis at noon on the ECB website.
Euro money market provides information on the secured, unsecured, foreign exchange swap and overnight index swap euro money market segments. As of 2016 the Money Market Survey is discontinued and replaced by the Money Market Statistical Reporting. The euro short-term rate (€STR) is based on MMSR data.
Financial integration in the euro area provide an overall assessment of the degree of financial integration in the main financial market segments of the euro area covering the money market, bond markets, equity markets and banking markets, including indicators related to market infrastructures. The indicators are updated biannually.
Macroeconomic and sectoral statistics include a wide range of key statistics for the whole economy, individual sectors and the relationships between them. They are the backbone for economic and financial stability analysis and monitoring the effects of the ECB’s monetary policy on the euro area economy. These statistics are available for the euro area and, in most cases, all EU countries using comparable statistical methods.
Macroeconomic data also include data on consumer prices and inflation, other prices and costs:
GDP, output, demand and income encompass data on national accounts main aggregates, short-term business statistics, economic tendency surveys and other statistics.
Sector accounts include financial and non-financial sector accounts which provide the national accounts for all institutional sectors of the economy, including data on income, consumption, saving, investment, financing, financial investment and net lending/borrowing of households, non-financial corporations, financial corporations (and sub-sectors) and the government sector, as well as data on financial and non-financial assets, debt and wealth for all sectors. They also include who-to-whom information on most financial instruments. Distributional Wealth Accounts provide additional breakdowns for the household sector.
Government finance statistics include more detailed data for the general government sector, mainly used for fiscal analysis, are also part of the macroeconomic and sectoral statistics.
Balance of payments and international investment position The balance of payments is a statistical statement that summarises, for a specific period of time, the economic transactions of an economy with the rest of the world. The international investment position is a statistical statement that shows, at a specific point in time, the value and composition of financial assets of residents of an economy and liabilities of residents of an economy to non-residents.
International reserves statistics, in addition to the official reserve assets, include the foreign currency liquidity of the monetary authorities of a country, as well as other balance-sheet and off-balance sheet activities such as forwards, futures and other financial derivatives, undrawn credit lines and loans guarantees. They present the foreign currency resources at a reference date and also inflows and outflows of foreign exchange over a future one-year period.
External trade in goods statistics summarise on a monthly basis the exchange of goods across international borders. The trade weights statistics are based on bilateral data on trade in manufactured goods.
External debt of an economy represents, at any given time, the outstanding actual (rather than contingent) liabilities (and assets) vis-à-vis non-residents that require the payment of principal and/or interest by the debtor at a single or several points in the future.
This part covers information on macroprudential and supervisory statistics.
Supervisory banking statistics: Aggregated supervisory banking statistics contain information on the following aspects of banks designated as significant institutions (SI) as well as less significant institutions (LSI) such as balance sheet composition and profitability, capital adequacy, leverage, asset quality, funding and liquidity.
Payment services, large-value payment systems and retail payment systems cover important aspects of payment transactions in EU countries, such as information on the availability and usage of different payment services and the main payment and settlement systems.
Securities trading, clearing and settlements provide information on the different types of pre- and post-trade infrastructures/systems for structural analysis, for oversight and research purposes.
This section contains data related to the ECB surveys.
Survey on the access to finance of enterprises (SAFE) covers micro, small, medium-sized and large firms and it provides evidence on the financing conditions faced by SMEs compared with those of large firms during the past six months. In addition to a breakdown into firm size classes, it provides evidence across branches of economic activity, euro area countries, firm age, financial autonomy of the firms, and ownership of the firms.
Bank Lending Survey (BLS)'s main objective is to enhance the Eurosystem's knowledge of bank lending conditions in the euro area. The BLS provides input for the ECB Governing Council's assessment of monetary and economic developments, on which it bases its monetary policy decisions.
Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) is a quarterly survey of expectations for the rates of inflation, real GDP growth and unemployment in the euro area for several horizons, together with a quantitative assessment of the uncertainty surrounding them. The participants are experts affiliated with financial or non-financial institutions based within the European Union.
