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)
Date: 2007-12-12
Institutions: European Central Bank
Subjects: Germany, disclosure of information, intra-EU payment, national law, statistics

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  based  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  reporting  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 identifying the economic nature of the transactions 

underlying the payments, in the future, reporting agents 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  with 

the  data 

requirements 

laid  down 

in 

Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2007 on 
Community statistics on the structure and activity of foreign affiliates2. 

1  
2  

OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
OJ L 171, 29.6.2007, p. 17. 

 
 
 
 
                                        
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  the  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 reliability, 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 useful 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 burden 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 amendments, 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 

2