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Executive summary

This biennial report provides a quality review of the national balance of payments (b.o.p.), international investment position (i.i.p.) and international reserves template of the Eurosystem (international reserves), as well as the associated euro area aggregates.[1] The report fulfils the formal requirement for the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) to inform its Governing Council of the quality of these statistics, as set out in Article 6(1) of Guideline ECB/2011/23 (hereinafter, the ECB Guideline on external statistics).[2] Furthermore, the report provides information supporting the macroeconomic imbalance procedure (MIP) data quality assurance process, as laid down in the Memorandum of Understanding between Eurostat and the European Central Bank/Directorate General Statistics on the quality assurance of statistics underlying the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (the MoU).

The main principles and elements guiding the production of ECB statistics are set out in the ECB Statistics Quality Framework (SQF) and quality assurance procedures, which are published on the ECB’s website. [3] This report therefore provides a quality analysis of the statistical output covering: (i) methodological soundness; (ii) timeliness and punctuality; (iii) data and metadata availability; (iv) accuracy and reliability; (v) internal consistency (validation, and net errors and omissions); (vi) external consistency/coherence with other comparable statistical domains (euro area accounts, foreign trade in goods statistics, monetary financial institution (MFI) balance sheet items, money market fund (MMF), investment fund (IF) and securities holdings statistics); and (vii) asymmetries (intra-euro area and bilateral asymmetries).

The descriptive and quantitative indicators used throughout this report are based on quarterly and monthly data transmitted up to 31 October 2023. The last reference period included in the analysis is Q2 2023 for quarterly data, or June 2023 for monthly data. Supporting tables and charts are provided in Annex 1, while details of how the indicators are computed can be found in Annex 2.

Given the specific MIP requirements and the responsibilities entrusted to the ECB under the MoU, the MIP Box at the end of the main body of the report presents some of the indicators used to measure the fitness for purpose of the data for all EU Member States. The box draws on annual data up to 2022 and revisions up to 2021, and focuses on the following quality dimensions: (i) data availability and confidentiality; (ii) sources and methods; (iii) accuracy and reliability; (iv) internal consistency; and (iv) external consistency.

Statistical developments

This section highlights some of the statistical developments that have occurred since publication of the Quality Report 2021.

Following Croatia’s adoption of the euro on 1 January 2023, b.o.p. and i.i.p. data for the enlarged euro area were released for the first time in March 2023, starting from the January 2013 reference period. The changes in the euro area aggregate required close cooperation with national compilers, in particular those from Croatia, given that the back data reported by Croatia had to be incorporated into the enlarged euro area-20 aggregate statistics. Moreover, national data reflecting the new composition (euro area 20) had to be included, either based on revised country transmissions or derived by the ECB by applying an estimation method. The enlargement of the euro area also means that a detailed assessment of Croatia's b.o.p. and i.i.p. data is now part of this Quality Report.

Since April 2023 the ECB has published euro area time series for the additional details requested pursuant to the amendment introduced by Guideline ECB/2018/19, starting from the Q1 2019 reference period. These series include additional details by sector, instrument and geographic counterpart that address many of the most pressing outstanding user needs. The analytical value of the new details is particularly visible in the more granular sector breakdowns, revealing substantial heterogeneity within the financial sector other than MFIs and the non-financial sector, and in terms of increased geographical coverage.[4] Looking ahead, the provision of longer time series remains key to improving value to users. In support of this goal, the roadmap agreed with the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) Statistics Committee (STC) requires national compilers to provide, by September 2024 at the latest, the main time series for the additional details starting from the Q1 2013 reference period. Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovenia have already provided the full set of back data ahead of this deadline.

Efforts continued within the ESCB to provide data on Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) in the external statistics. Under the amendment introduced by Guideline ECB/2022/23 in May 2022 requiring separate information on SPEs to be included in b.o.p. and i.i.p. statistics, mandatory data collection started in March 2023, with the reference data for Q4 2022, while the back data from Q1 2020 was requested to be transmitted by September 2023. Euro area aggregates and national publishable data on SPEs were published for the first time in April 2024.

The ESCB has progressed with its activities to enhance the monthly b.o.p. statistics given the importance of higher frequency data for the ECB decision-making bodies. The ECB is organising webinars devoted to specific aspects of monthly b.o.p. statistics compilation in which national experts can share best practices with experts of interested countries seeking to implement similar approaches to overcome deficiencies existing within their own systems.

In October 2023 the ECB released a revamped and updated electronic version of the EU Balance of Payments and International Investment Position statistical sources and methods (the B.o.p. and i.i.p. e-book). The B.o.p. and i.i.p. e-book is organised by topic (rather than by country), providing an overview of general methodological aspects and highlighting the commonalities and specific deviations of country sources and methods in a harmonised format.

Within the ESCB, the Working Group on External Statistics (WG ES) and the Working Group on Financial Accounts and Government Finance Statistics (WG FGS), along with other Statistics Committee (STC) substructures, are working together closely on the following common issues:

  • eliminating the remaining inconsistencies between the national b.o.p and i.i.p. statistics and the rest of the world account and supporting the review of the System of National Accounts (SNA) and Balance of Payments Manual (BPM);
  • implementing the plan towards compiling data on foreign-controlled non-financial corporations (FCCs), as approved by the STC in June 2023;
  • following-up on the conclusions and recommendations of the final report of the Virtual Group on Unlisted Equity, taking into account the clarifications given by the Task Force on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

Further improvements to data quality have been made by countries in capturing the activities of SPEs (e.g. Malta supplemented the annual survey with a new administrative data source). Cyprus, Ireland and Malta have started to report relevant figures for the new FDI breakdown by debt instrument, and in the Netherlands, a new method for estimating quarterly figures has improved the geographical allocation and the stock/flow reconciliation. Regarding the compilation of financial derivatives data, Luxembourg has started to report consistent stock and flow data for MFIs and has improved the coverage of resident captive financial institutions, while Germany has started reporting transactions in financial derivatives for the government sector.

This notwithstanding, there is still room for further improvement of the various quality dimensions analysed in this report. For example, in terms of methodological soundness, Malta continues to face certain challenges in seeking to improve the general quality of its data, enhance SPE data collection (e.g. geographical details) and eliminate breaks in the data. Cyprus and Luxembourg need to extend SPE coverage further. With regard to services, feedback from countries is needed to assess the materiality of service margins on buying and selling financial assets and the consequent need to start recording these services if the data are material.

In terms of functional classification, a number of countries are not yet able to classify as direct investment (the appropriate functional category) transactions and related positions in debt securities between companies engaged in a direct investment relationship. Furthermore, the recording of trade credits between companies in a direct investment relationship under other investment instead of under direct investment is still an issue for Spain[5] and Luxembourg.

Concerning internal consistency, a large majority of countries provide the ECB with fully consistent data. However, Malta needs to ensure regular compliance with the validation and integrity rules for quarterly b.o.p. and i.i.p. data, while Germany needs to ensure the proper geographical allocation for transaction and position and avoid the use of “W19 Rest of the World (non-allocated geographically)”.

With regard to consistency and coherence with other datasets, b.o.p. and i.i.p. data are in line with other datasets overall, thus ensuring comparability across statistical domains. However, it continues to be of utmost importance that all countries follow the agreed steps to ensure full consistency vis-à-vis balance sheet items (BSI) statistics and sectoral accounts. In terms of other datasets, the ECB encourages b.o.p. and i.i.p. colleagues to interact with their counterparts to structurally reduce discrepancies and/or to reconcile and document differences between datasets where there are objective methodological differences.

Table 1 below provides a list of notable issues affecting certain euro area countries, as well as the scope for improvement, based on the analysis carried out in the following chapters.

Table 1

Notable issues and scope for improvement (for euro area countries)

Concept

Ref.

Recommendation

Applicable countries/NCBs

Methodological soundness and statistical procedures (Section 2)

Residency

A1.1

Continue improving SPE geographical detail

Cyprus, Malta, the Netherlands

A1.2

Decrease as much as possible the remaining coverage gap for the actual SPE population

Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta

A1.3

Enhance consistency over time by reducing breaks in the time series

Cyprus, Malta

Services

A2.1

Enhance data sources and procedures to record service margins on buying and selling financial assets, if assessed to be material1)

All countries (excl. Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Austria)

Portfolio investment

A3.1

Apply the accrual principle when reporting financial account transactions for portfolio investment

Germany2)

A3.2

Provide accurate values for monthly first assessments of transactions in MMF shares (assets)

Croatia

Financial derivatives

A4.1

Implement structural changes (in the main data sources and procedures) to enhance the financial derivatives recording for all sectors

All countries

Functional classification

A5.1

Continue assessing the relevance of debt securities between companies engaged in a DI relationship to report them appropriately under DI if relevant

A number of countries report zero values (Germany3), Greece4), France5), Luxembourg 6)) while the rest report very small amounts

A5.2

Classify trade credits between companies in a direct investment relationship as direct investment instead of other investment

Spain, Luxembourg

Foreign direct investment

A6.1

Assess and confirm whether transactions/positions between fellow enterprises in equity are negligible

Germany, France

A6.2

Confirm or correct the negative liability positions for reverse direct investment in equity (Q2 2019 to Q4 2020)

Malta

A6.3

Correctly report transactions/positions in debt instruments between fellow enterprises prior to 2019

The Netherlands

A.6.4

Correctly classify the trade credit instruments that are currently reported under loans

Greece

Other investment

A7.1

Correctly report the assets and liabilities of insurance, pension and standardised guarantee schemes (F6) for insurance and pension fund corporations, and improve coverage, from the assets side, of the rest of the sectors of the economy

Ireland, Greece, France, Malta, Lithuania, Luxembourg,

A7.2

Properly report holdings of euro banknotes abroad (stocks and flows)

France, Malta

Reconciliation of positions and flows

A8

Continue improving the breakdown between price changes, exchange-rate changes and other volume changes to ensure a realistic reconciliation of positions and flows

Germany, the Netherlands

Securities held with non-resident custodians and other foreign assets in particular, of households

A9

Keep improving the estimation models for assets held abroad by residents, in particular for the household sector

All countries (excl. Spain, Latvia7))

A9.1

Securities: integrate third-party holdings from the securities holdings statistics by sector (SHSS), in particular for households

Ireland, Greece, Croatia, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria8), Portugal9), Slovakia, Finland

A9.2

Deposits with non-euro area banks: integrate available mirror data provided by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)

Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovakia

Goods

A10

Revise monthly data for goods in line with the community concept (2015 to 2017)

Ireland

Investment fund income

A11

Improve estimates for received income attributable to shareholders from euro area investments funds

Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Croatia, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta

Quality of monthly data

A12

Enhance the quality of monthly b.o.p. data by allocating the transactions to the right month by using, as much as possible, existing monthly data sources and appropriate statistical methods

Cyprus, Ireland, the Netherlands

Data and metadata availability (Section 4)

Completeness

B1

Complete the reporting of reliable data on equity by type: listed, unlisted and investment fund shares

Malta

Flags

B2

Further review the use of the “confidentiality” flag in the publishable dataset and monthly b.o.p.

Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria

Internal consistency (Sections 6.1 and 6.2)

Validation and integrity rules

C1

Ensure proper geographical allocation in Geo2 and Geo3 and avoid the use of “W19 Rest of the World (non-unallocated geographically)”

Germany

C2

Ensure compliance with validation and integrity rules for quarterly b.o.p./i.i.p. data

Malta

Net errors and omissions (n.e.o.)

C3

Investigate the reasons behind the level of n.e.o. and their bias

Germany, Croatia, Malta, Austria, Finland

External consistency: b.o.p./i.i.p. data with euro area sector accounts (Section 7.2)

b.o.p./i.i.p. with rest of the world (RoW) data

D1

Address the pending discrepancies as agreed in the objectives of the MIP visits or, at the latest, by the next benchmark revision

Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, France, Luxembourg, Malta,

(See Charts 9 to 11 for more details)

External coherence: b.o.p./i.i.p. data with MFI balance sheet data (Section 7.3)

b.o.p./i.i.p. with MFI data

E1

Continue regularly assessing the differences between the BSI and b.o.p/i.i.p.. datasets and their development

All countries, relevant for the large absolute values of France

External coherence: b.o.p./i.i.p. data with securities holdings statistics (Section 7.5)

b.o.p./i.i.p. with SHSS data

F1

Improve the coverage in the i.i.p. of equity and investment fund shares held by financial corporations other than MFIs

Germany

External coherence: b.o.p./i.i.p. data with insurance corporation and pension fund statistics (Section 7.6)

IC PF statistics

G1

Assess and reconcile the differences observed in the i.i.p. for equity instruments

France

Asymmetries (Sections 8.1 and 8.2)

Asymmetries

H1

Make efforts to address asymmetries

All countries, relevant and recurrent for Malta

Notes:
1) In accordance with the BPM6 standards, margins on buying and selling financial assets should be included in the service account. However, due to the complexity of including this item in the accounts, the WG ES, in cooperation with other international organisations, has investigated approaches to defining best practices by providing specific guidance to enhance the estimation of this financial service. The outcome did not reach a sufficiently clear conclusion and the methodological work now continues as part of the BPM6 update. The countries excluded conducted studies on the GNI materiality of margins on buying and selling financial assets and could demonstrate that those services are not material.
2) The implementation of the full accrual principle in the portfolio investment liability might take further time, owing to the complexity of the issue.
3) Germany assesses that intra-group financing via debt securities is a phenomenon almost non-existing.
4) Greece, intra group financing via debt securities is assessed by the FDI survey, but the amounts seem to be negligible and therefore it is assumed that the phenomenon is almost non existing.
5) France assumes intra-group financing via debt securities to be close to non-existent. Changing this assumption would be costly for an overall negligible impact on the overall balance of payment.
6) Some Luxembourg financial institutions provide BCL with statistical forms including hybrid financial products, which would be either equity or debt instruments. After analysing thoroughly those reports, BCL concluded that the correct classification was either Direct Investment / Loan or Portfolio Investment / Debt securities.
7) Latvia has improved the estimation models by integrating SHS data and by using BIS mirror data and mirror data on real estate.
8) In Austria, SHSS data for households are integrated from 2022Q1 onwards. With the next benchmark revision, the country planned