EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 12 December 2007 
at the request of the German Ministry of Economy and Technology 
on reporting provisions for payments and direct investments in domestic and foreign economic 
territories in connection with the creation of  the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) 
(CON/2007/41) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 17 October 2007 the European Central Bank (ECB)  received a request from the German Federal 
Ministry of Economy and Technology for an opinion on the draft 82nd Regulation amending the 
Regulation on foreign trade (hereinafter the ‘draft regulation’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is b ased on Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing the 
European Community and the fourth indent of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 98/415/EC of 
29 June 1998 on the consultation of the ECB by national authorities regarding draft legislative 
provisions1, as the draft regulation relates to the collection, compilation and distribution of monetary, 
financial, banking, payment systems and balance of payments statistics. In accordance with the first 
sentence of Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the ECB, the Governing Council has adopted this 
opinion. 
 1.  Purpose of the draft regulation 
1.1 The draft regulation amends the current re porting provisions for cross-border payments from 
Germany to other European Union Member States, Liechtenstein, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland in the Regulation on foreign trade, to facilitate the introduction of the payment instruments for the 
Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). As the SEPA messaging standards for these payment instruments currently do not contain any fields id entifying the economic nature of the transactions 
underlying the payments, in the future, reporting ag ents will transmit the necessary statistical data 
directly to the Deutsche Bundesbank. 
1.2 The draft regulation will also amend reporting provisions on direct investments in domestic and 
foreign economic territories to comply w ith the data requirements laid down in 
Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 of the European Par liament and of the Council of 20 June 2007 on 
Community statistics on the structure and activity of foreign affiliates
2. 
                                        
1  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
2  OJ L 171, 29.6.2007, p. 17. 
 
2 1.3 Forms Z 11, Z 12, Z 14, Z 15 and Form LV will be revised and redrafted as a result of 
terminological amendments to be aligned with th e new data collection approach for cross-border 
transactions. 
 2.  General observations 2.1 The ECB is currently studying the effect of SEPA on the use of payments data for balance of 
payments purposes in euro area countries. Without prejudice to the outcome of this study, the development of SEPA implies that balance of payments reporting systems mainly based on 
payments data need to change regarding payments  in euro within SEPA. At the same time, balance 
of payments statistics must maintain the high re liability, frequency and timeliness that are required 
for ECB monetary policy-making.  
2.2 The ECB understands that, in the reporting system that the draft regulation will set up, direct 
reporting will be further increased . The ECB welcomes this approach. 
2.3 The ECB regards payments data as a potentially usef ul tool in particular to identify the reporting 
population to be surveyed, i.e. to set up and maintain  a register of internationally active enterprises. 
In the future, in the context of SEPA, more non -financial entities may choose to hold their bank 
account with a bank that is resident in another Member State.  
2.4 Since the proposed changes in the reporting bu rden for outgoing payments from credit institutions 
to the agents directly involved  in the transaction facilitate the implementation of SEPA for the 
banking industry, the ECB welcomes these amendmen ts, provided the quality of the provided data 
is not compromised. In general, the ECB emphasises that credit institutions must continue reporting 
all transactions in which they are directly involved and supply readily available reference 
information on external statistics, as necessary.  
  This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.   Done at Frankfurt am Main, 12 December 2007. 
 
[signed] 
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET