Statistics co-operation and standards
The ECB works closely with the European institutions and the financial industry on statistical matters.
Statistics at the European level
Responsibility for statistics at the European level is shared between the ECB and the European Commission through Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office.
The exact division of labour is laid out in the following documents:
ESS - European Statistical System
The statistical function of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and that of the European Statistical System (ESS – a partnership involving Eurostat and national statistical institutes) cooperate on both an operational and a strategic level.
- Platform for operational cooperation: Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB)
- Platform for strategic cooperation: European Statistical Forum
Other international organisations
The ECB also maintains close relationships with other international organisations in statistical matters. Wherever possible, ECB statistics conform to international standards.
Dialogue with the banking industry
The ESCB Statistics Committee exchanges information and views with representatives of the banking industry on new and ongoing initiatives in the field of ESCB statistics via the “Banking Industry Dialogue on ESCB statistics”.
The “Banks’ Corner” of the Our Statistics website is a download area where EU banks can access key euro area and national statistics.
Banks’ data reporting
The European System of Central Banks cooperates with banks on technical issues through the Banks’ Integrated Reporting Dictionary (BIRD) project and the Integrated Reporting Framework (IReF), which both aim to integrate banks’ reporting across statistical domains and countries.
The international statistical standards are a globally agreed set of recommendations on how to measure domestic and external economic developments.
Statistics that are based on these standards include those on money, credit, banking and financial corporations, as well as those on macroeconomics and the balance of payments.
There are two main standards:
- System of National Accounts (SNA) 2008 – prepared by Eurostat, the IMF, the OECD, the UN and the World Bank. The European counterpart of the SNA 2008 is the European System of Accounts (ESA) 2010. In addition to legally binding methodological standards, the ESA 2010 determines the national accounts datasets that EU Member States must submit to Eurostat (ESA 2010 transmission programme)
- the IMF’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (sixth edition, BPM6)
The SNA 2008 and the BPM6 are fully consistent in terms of methodological requirements and sector classifications, making it possible to analyse the interaction of resident sectors with the rest of the global economy.