Guideline of the European Central Bank

of 21 November 2002

on the statistical reporting requirements of the European Central Bank in the field of quarterly financial accounts

(ECB/2002/7)

(2002/967/EC)

THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK,

Having regard to the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank, and in particular to Articles 5(1) and 5(2), Article 12(1) and Article 14(3) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) To fulfil its tasks the European Central Bank (ECB) needs comprehensive and reliable quarterly financial accounts for euro area institutional sectors and for the rest of the world.

(2) Article 5(1) of the Statute requires the ECB, assisted by the national central banks (NCBs), to collect either from the competent national authorities or directly from economic agents the statistical information necessary for it to undertake the tasks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). Article 5(2) stipulates that the NCBs shall carry out, to the extent possible, the tasks described in Article 5(1).

(3) Part of the information necessary to meet the ECB's statistical requirements in the field of quarterly euro area financial accounts is compiled by competent national authorities other than NCBs. Therefore, some of the tasks to be undertaken under this Guideline require cooperation between the ESCB and the competent national authorities, in line with Article 5(1) of the Statute and Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 of 23 November 1998 concerning the collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank(1).

(4) For reasons of consistency, the ECB's requirements in the field of quarterly euro area financial accounts should be based as much as possible on the Community statistical standards laid down by Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European System of National and Regional Accounts in the Community(2), as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 359/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council(3) (the "ESA 95").

(5) Financial accounts are derived from various statistics and a part of the quarterly data is estimates. Constraints on collection systems of these statistics and on resources imply that derogations from this Guideline may have to be granted, except in relation to any data for which there is a basis for reliable estimation.

(6) The transmission from the NCBs to the ECB of confidential statistical information takes place to the extent necessary for the exercise of the tasks of the ESCB. The confidentiality regime is laid down in Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 and Guideline ECB/1998/NP28 of 22 December 1998 concerning the common rules and minimum standards to protect the confidentiality of the individual statistical information collected by the ECB with the assistance of the NCBs(4).

(7) It is necessary to set up a procedure to carry out technical amendments to the annexes to this Guideline in an effective manner, provided that such amendments neither change the underlying conceptual framework nor affect the reporting burden. Account will be taken of the views of the Statistics Committee of the ESCB when following the procedure. NCBs may propose such technical amendments to the annexes through the Statistics Committee.

(8) In accordance with Article 12(1) and Article 14(3) of the Statute, ECB guidelines form an integral part of Community law,

HAS ADOPTED THIS GUIDELINE:

Article 1

Definitions

For the purposes of this Guideline:

1. "Participating Member State" shall mean a Member State which has adopted the single currency in accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community;

2. "euro area" shall mean the economic territory of the participating Member States, and the ECB.

Article 2

Statistical reporting obligations of the NCBs

1. The NCBs shall report to the ECB data for financial assets and liabilities, as specified in Annex I, on a calendar quarterly frequency. The data shall comply with the principles and definitions of the ESA 95, unless otherwise specified in Annex I.

2. The data shall cover the period from the fourth quarter of 1997 to the quarter to which the transmission relates.

3. The data shall be accompanied by readily available information on single major events and on reasons for revisions, when the magnitude of the change to the data caused by such single major events and by revisions is at least 0,1 % of the quarterly euro area GDP.

Article 3

Statistical reporting obligations of the ECB

The ECB shall report to the NCBs the quarterly euro area financial accounts that the ECB compiles and publishes in its monthly bulletin.

Article 4

Timeliness

1. The data and other information described in Article 2 shall be reported to the ECB within a period which shall not exceed 130 calendar days after the end of the quarter to which the data relate.

2. The data described in Article 3 shall be reported to the NCBs not later than the next ECB working day after the ECB finalises the data for publication.

Article 5

Cooperation with the competent national authorities

1. Where the sources for some or all of the data and for the information described in Article 2 are competent national authorities other than the NCBs, the NCBs shall endeavour to establish with those authorities the appropriate modalities of cooperation to ensure a permanent structure of data transmission to fulfil the standards and requirements of the ECB, unless the same result is already achieved on the basis of national legislation.

2. When in the course of this cooperation an NCB is unable to comply with the requirements laid down in Articles 2 and 4 because the competent national authority did not provide the NCB with the necessary information, the ECB and the NCB shall discuss with that authority how the information can be made available.

Article 6

Transmission and coding standards

The NCBs and the ECB shall use the standards specified in Annex II to transmit and code the data described in Articles 2 and 3. This requirement does not prevent the use of some other means of transmitting statistical information to the ECB as an agreed fallback solution.

Article 7

Quality

1. The ECB and NCBs shall monitor and promote the quality of the data reported to the ECB.

2. The Executive Board of the ECB shall report yearly to the Governing Council of the ECB on the quality of the quarterly euro area financial accounts.

3. The report shall address, at least, the coverage of the data, the extent to which they comply with the relevant definitions, and the magnitude of revisions.

Article 8

Derogations

1. The Governing Council of the ECB shall grant derogations to the NCBs that are unable to comply with the requirements laid down in Article 2. The granted derogations are listed in Annex III.

2. An NCB which has been granted a derogation for a specified period of time shall inform the ECB yearly of the steps to be taken in order to fully comply with the reporting requirements.

3. The Governing Council of the ECB shall review the derogations yearly.

Article 9

Simplified amendment procedure

Taking account of the views of the Statistics Committee, the Executive Board of the ECB shall be entitled to make technical amendments to the annexes to this Guideline, provided that such amendments neither change the underlying conceptual framework nor affect the reporting burden.

Article 10

Final provisions

1. This Guideline is addressed to the NCBs of the participating Member States.

2. This Guideline shall enter into force two days following its adoption.

3. This Guideline shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

Done at Frankfurt am Main on 21 November 2002.

On behalf of the Governing Council of the ECB

Willem F. Duisenberg

(1) OJ L 318, 27.11.1998, p. 8.

(2) OJ L 310, 30.11.1996, p. 1.

(3) OJ L 58, 28.2.2002, p. 1.

(4) Published in OJ L 55, 24.2.2001, p. 72, as Annex III to Decision ECB/2000/12 of 10 November 2000 on the publication of certain legal acts and instruments of the European Central Bank.

ANNEX I

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ANNEX II

TRANSMISSION AND CODING STANDARDS

For the electronic transmission of the statistical information as described in Article 2, the NCBs shall use the facility provided by the ESCB, which relies upon the telecommunication network "ESCB-Net". The message format developed for this exchange of statistical information is the "Gesmes/CB" format. Each time series shall be coded using the MUFA key family shown below.

MUFA key family

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ANNEX III

DEROGATIONS RELATED TO THE TIME SERIES LISTED IN ANNEX I, TABLES 1 to 4(1)

1. Current data(2)

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2. Back data(3)

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(1) Abbreviations: NFS = non-financial sectores (S. 11 + S. 13 + S. 14 + S. 15); GG = general government (S. 13); HH = households including non-profit institutions serving households (S. 14 + S. 15); NFC = non-financial corporations (S. 11); OFI = other financial intermediaries other than insurance corporations and pension funds including financial auxiliaries (S. 123 + S. 124); ICPF = Insurance corporations and pension funds (S. 125).

(2) Derogations for current and back data, where current data are not available.

(3) Derogations for back data, where current data are available.