It is probably more complicated when the central bank and the financial sector supervisor are decoupled. The latest statement leads us to another challenge which should not be underestimated – how to make a balance between the need for more comprehensive and micro oriented data systems and the reporting burden on reporting agents. The improved statistical system is of course a public good, but at the same time the merits of it must be weighed against the costs. The costs mainly refer to constantly increasing reporting burden. Although  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  the increase of the reporting burden probably is unavoidable, yet the practice and the recent experience prove that there are efficient ways how to handle it. Making better use of the already existing data, streamlining the data and avoiding overlapping might mitigate the problem. Often mentioned example of this is the work of the ECB and the European Banking Authority (EBA) to reconcile credit institutions’ statistical and supervisory reporting requirements. In 2012 a classification system linking the requirements of the ECB’s monetary and financial statistics with the supervisory reporting templates was published. In this regard, the synchronization of the data flows, which until now have been separated, serving different mandates of the central bank, reveals another relevant issue which asks for a quick solution – the issue of data confidentiality. Individual data, particularly data for supervisory purposes are treated with a large degree of confidentiality. Different national authorities have different legal frameworks which address the confidentiality of individual data.

As we all know, the global regulatory reform basically addresses the lessons learned from the crisis that insufficient capital and liquidity buffers, non-adequate on and off-balance sheet risk coverage and excessive leverage can undermine the stability of the financial system. The role of statistics in this regard is to improve the current statistical frameworks and to design new frameworks so as to provide adequate information for detecting vulnerabilities in the financial sector. Main venues in this regard are: redesign of the set of financial stability indicators to improve their value added for assessing the health of the financial systems, measurement of aggregate leverage and maturity mismatches, coverage of tail risks, more transparency about complex structured products and credit default swaps, and improvement of securities statistics. Adequate coverage of the unregulated institutions and instruments (the “shadow banking system”) seems also a key for having a complete risk-map. The need to supplement averages, with ranges and distribution was clearly demonstrated with the crisis. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  2. Cross-border financial links should be covered more properly within national financial stability assessments. In the world of fast growing financial integration and creation of large multinational financial groups, data on these networks are indispensible for a proper financial stability assessment within the country. Enhancement of information on systemically important global financial institutions, and initiating data gathering of crossborder flows seems to become a “must” nowadays for a proper assessment of the stability of national financial systems. 3.