EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 9 August 2005 
at the request of De Nederlandsche Bank 
on a draft mandate order on financial institut ions’ sector accounts and a draft cooperation 
agreement between the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek and De Nederlandsche Bank on sector 
accounts 
(CON/2005/27)  
 1. On 27 June 2005 the European Central Bank (ECB ) received a request from De Nederlandsche 
Bank (DNB) for an opinion on a draft mandate order on financial institutions’ sector accounts 
(hereinafter the ‘Mandating Order’) and a draf t cooperation agreement between the Centraal 
Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) and DNB on sector accounts (hereinafter the ‘Cooperation 
Agreement’). 
2. The ECB’s competence to deliver an  opinion is based on the fourth indent of Article 2(1) of 
Council Decision 98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 on the consultation of the European Central Bank by 
national authorities regarding draft legislative provisions
1, as the legislative proposal contains 
provisions concerning the collection, compilation and distribution of monetary, financial, banking, 
payment systems and balance of payments statis tics. In accordance with the first sentence of 
Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Central Bank, the Governing Council  has 
adopted this opinion. 
3. The ECB welcomes this consultation on the two connected measures implementing this transfer of 
competences and obligations between the two au thorities. The Cooperation Agreement establishes 
a cooperation framework between DNB and the CBS in the field of financial and non-financial 
national accounts by institutional sector defining th eir respective responsibilities in terms of data 
collection, compilation of the accounts, exchange of data and fulfilment of international obligations. The Mandating Order is a draft legisl ative provision which mandates DNB to collect 
such data from financial instituti ons on behalf of the CBS for the compilation of accounts and to 
impose administrative measures in the event of fa ilure to comply with the corresponding reporting 
obligations, currently a CBS exclusive competence under the Wet op het Centraal bureau voor de 
                                                     
 
1  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42. 
 
2 statistiek (Statistics Netherlands Act) and the Besluit gegevensverwerving CBS (Statistics 
Netherlands Data Collection Order).  
4. The ECB welcomes the initiative laid down in the Mandating Order and the Cooperation 
Agreement as it will help to ensure the compilatio n of high quality quarterly financial accounts 
required under Guideline ECB/2002/7 of 21 November 2001 on the statistical reporting 
requirements of the European Central Bank in the field of quarterly financial accounts2 (hereinafter 
the ‘MUFA Guideline’). It is noted that the Cooperation Agreement complies with the provisions 
of Article 5 of the MUFA Guideline. The ECB also welcomes the fact that the Cooperation 
Agreement provides for the compilation of integrat ed financial and non-financial accounts, in line 
with ECB requirements for euro ar ea accounts by institutional sector. 
5. The Cooperation Agreement provides that DNB will entrust the CBS with the task of reporting to 
the ECB data on financial accounts compiled by the CBS on the basis of data reported to both DNB 
and the CBS. The ECB does not object in principle to DNB outsourcing its reporting obligations 
towards the ECB, provided certain legal requirements are met. In particular, DNB must retain full 
responsibility for all such activities, including the data’s overall consistenc y and the transmission 
of all relevant data to the ECB. Therefore, DNB must be able to check that the ECB’s statistical 
reporting requirements laid down in the MUFA Guide line are being fully met. In this context, DNB 
has to ensure that any future reporting require ments under the MUFA Guideline are met without 
any delay. In particular, the ECB notes that under Article 2(3) of the MUFA Guideline, DNB, or if so agreed the CBS, is obliged to  report to the ECB readily available information on single major 
events and on reasons for revisions, in addition to  data for financial assets and liabilities. It is 
therefore DNB’s responsibility to ensure that th e Mandating Order and the Cooperation Agreement 
meet this requirement. 
6. The ECB takes note of the division of labour betw een the two institutions in respect of data 
collection as laid down in Sections 3 and 4 of  the Cooperation Agreement and in the Mandating 
Order. Further to the Mandating Orde r, all financial institutions will submit their statistical data to a 
single institution, namely DNB. This may furt her streamline the burden on the institutions 
concerned, in view of the arrangements betw een DNB and the CBS that have already been 
established in the fields of balance of pa yments and monetary statistics reporting. 
7. Section 7.1 of the Cooperation Agreement, in conj unction with Section 7.3, and Article 3(1)(g) of 
the Mandating Order, set out the confidentiality regime  to be applied to the data collected by the 
respective institutions. In particular, Section 7.1 provides that ‘micro information shall be secret 
and shall not be provided to any third party’. W ith respect to data handling and its transmission 
3 between the two institutions, the ECB welcomes proper protection of confidential statistical 
information.  
8. Finally, under the ESCB’s internal arrangements it is not possible to share agendas and reports of 
meetings of ESCB advisory committees with third pa rties. The final sentence of Section 10.2 of the 
Cooperation Agreement needs to be amended to reflect this. 
9. This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website. 
 
 
Done at Frankfurt am Main, 9 August 2005. 
 
[ signed ] 
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET 
                                                                                                                                                                           
2  OJ L 334, 11.12.2002, p. 24.