Bankstats article
By John Lowes
The new data will be published for the first time in the Bank's statistical releases on 'External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK' on 4 December 2015, and 'Consolidated worldwide claims', on 18 December 2015.
Introduction
Following the financial crisis, the Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS) proposed a series of recommendations to address some of the identified gaps in the International Banking Statistics (IBS). These recommendations formed part of a wide reaching series of data improvements known as the G20—Data Gaps Initiative (DGI).
The DGI comprised 20 numbered recommendations that sought to capture better the build-up of risk in the financial sector, improve data on cross-border financial linkages, monitor the vulnerability of domestic economies to shocks and improve the communication of official statistics.
Recommendations 8 to 12 sought to address the need for better data on cross-border financial linkages with recommendations 10 and 11 specifically focused on addressing gaps in the IBS.
To comply with these recommendations, the Bank introduced a range of changes to the key cross-border forms (Forms CC, CL and CE) which took effect for reporting from Q1 2014. The main changes were to collect additional sub-sector detail on non-bank counterparts for the existing IBS dataset. These data were published for the first time in the External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK statistical release on 5 June 2015, and in the Consolidated worldwide claims statistical release on 19 June 2015. A Bankstats article3 was published on 2 June 2015 highlighting these changes and provided additional information on the respective datasets.
Publication of additional information
As mentioned in the June article, the Bank has reviewed the currency composition tables published in the External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK statistical release and the counterpart country information published in both the External business and the Consolidated worldwide claims statistical releases.
The currency composition tables will now show flows as well as amounts outstanding while the counterpart country information will expand to show a greater number of countries previously included within the regional residual amounts.
Additional currency information
The existing currency analysis table, Table C3.3 (External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK by currency and sector) has been expanded to include flows as well as amounts outstanding. The new external codes are shown in Annex 1.
Data for the currency analysis are now sourced solely from the statistical forms used to collect cross-border business with non-residents (Forms CC and CL). Previous versions of table C3.3 used data from Forms CC and CL as well as including certain assumptions regarding the currency composition of the residual amounts. These residual amounts will now be included in the amounts unallocated by currency or sector. These changes have been incorporated with effect from Q1 2014 for amounts outstanding and for Q2 2014 for flows. The currency analysis compiled on the previous basis will no longer be published but will be available upon request.
Additional counterpart country information
The existing geographical breakdown of counterpart countries shown in the External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK and the Consolidated worldwide claims statistical releases focused on positions with the leading counterpart countries rather than all countries.
In light of the recommendation 10 of the G20—Data Gaps Initiative to improve the coverage of the IBS, the Bank has reviewed both statistical releases with the aim of making more counterpart country data available.
The Bank has sought to publish data for as many countries as possible without compromising the confidentiality undertaking outlined in the Bank’s Statistical Code of Practice. This states that any statistic containing source data, actual or imputed, from fewer than three institutions is withheld from publication unless the institutions’ consents have been given.
For the External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK statistical release, the Bank has adopted a symmetrical approach to publishing counterpart country data. This implies that counterpart country data will be published for both assets and liabilities even if the amounts involved on one side are minimal. For the Consolidated worldwide claims statistical release, the Bank opted to publish the same countries as published in the External business of monetary financial institutions operating in the UK statistical release, primarily to allow for comparison between the two datasets.
Counterpart country data will be published from 2015 Q3 onwards for the countries shown in Annex 2. These were implicitly included within the residual amounts for those regions. Countries remaining in the residual are also shown in Annex 2. These countries remain within the residual amounts as either their business is negligible or publication will compromise the Bank’s Code of Practice. The Bank will review these counterpart countries on a regular basis to ensure that all key counterparts are published to the fullest extent possible.
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For questions relating to this article please contact dsd_ms@bankofengland.co.uk or call +44 (0)20 3461 5356.