The statistics committees of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) are striving to close information gaps and make reliable and harmonised data available to decision-makers in the ESCB, politics and business.

Concurrently with the European Central Bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank is today publishing information on its expanded data and is posting the information on its website. The new statistical data cover the monetary and non-monetary financial sectors alike.

In revising the MFI interest rate statistics, the main change was the introduction of numerous additional breakdowns for new lending business; these are designed above all to improve analysis of the monetary transmission mechanism, the convergence of the euro-area financial markets and financial stability. An in-depth introduction of the changes to the survey framework and the sample, as well as initial results of the database (which was expanded with effect from June 2010), are contained in the June 2011 edition of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report.¹

Regulation ECB/2008/32 of 19 December 2008 expanded the reporting requirements for the MFI balance sheet statistics. Numerous new breakdowns of the most important balance sheet items have now been made available. Examples of new breakdowns include a separate report of claims and liabilities from reverse repo and repo transactions with central counterparties, detailed information on overdrafts and items for monetary financial institutions’ (MFIs’) holdings of securities issued by financial vehicle corporations (FVCs). Moreover, German MFIs now report on loan holdings which they have securitised (true-sale).

In addition, information on the business activities of FVCs resident in Germany is being published for the first time. FVCs’ assets and liabilities are broken down by type, maturity and counterparties’ sector.

The expanded data on MFIs and FVCs in Germany are available in table form on a monthly or quarterly basis on the Bundesbank’s website, in the “Statistics” section. The new breakdowns of the MFI balance sheet statistics were applied for the first time in the June 2010 reporting month. Statistical data on MFIs‘ securitisation business and on FVCs are available from December 2009
(http://www.bundesbank.de/statistik/statistik_banken_tabellen.en.php#weiteretabellen).

Whereas the supply of reliable statistical data is already very large for monetary financial institutions and investment funds (IFs), for other major financial sectors the European statistical standards have not yet been met. The publication today of initial figures from quarterly Statistics on insurance companies (including pension institutions) in the euro area will represent an important step in that direction. The initial aim of creating ESCB insurance statistics is to cover analytically motivated data needs using available data, especially provided by insurance supervisors, and other supplemental sources based on a uniform structure and frequency.²

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1. See Deutsche Bundesbank, Extended MFI interest rate statistics – methodology and first results, Monthly Report, June 2011 (English edition forthcoming).
2. See also the Bundesbank's separate press release of 27 June 2011, “New statistics on insurance companies in the euro area and Germany”.