jose manuel gonzalez - paramo : new investment fund statistics for the euro area introductory remarks by mr jose manuel gonzalez - paramo, member of the executive board of the european central bank, for the first statistical release, frankfurt am main, 11 december 2009. * * * ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the ecb. today it is my pleasure to introduce an important new set of statistics for the euro area as single economic entity. these statistics provide detailed harmonised information on the assets and liabilities of investment funds resident in the euro area. they are compiled by the ecb in close cooperation with the national central banks. fruitful work has also been conducted in liaison with the european fund and asset management association ( efama ), a business association represented in this room. since the inception of the ecb, major progress has been achieved in developing monetary and financial statistics for the euro area. this work, carried out in close cooperation with the member states, has resulted in a full range of timely and high quality euro area statistics, which the ecb constantly monitors in performing its policy functions. the first major steps were the implementation of euro area statistics for monetary financial institutions ( in particular to derive statistical information on monetary aggregates ), lending and interest rates, as well as on the balance of payments. in recent years, efforts have focused on the development of statistics for other financial sectors. this also reflects the increasing links between the banking sector and other financial institutions. moreover, our statistics have been integrated into the euro area accounts, which provide an overall picture of the euro area economy. the next milestone is the release of the new investment funds statistics, today. for some years, the ecb has already published un - harmonised and partly estimated euro area investment fund statistics, at a quarterly frequency. today we will present, for the first time, harmonised investment fund statistics that cover all investment funds resident in the euro area. this includes data for the main fund types such as bond, equity or mixed funds, but also other types of funds, including hedge funds. our new dataset contains much more detailed breakdowns both on the assets held and liabilities issued by investment funds. the data provide, for example, detailed information on the residency and sector of the issuers of securities and shares held by the funds. new information is available, as well, on the residency of the holders of the shares issued by euro area investment funds. in addition to the detailed quarterly information, the ecb now

##eb, the npl ratio stood at 10. 8 %. by march it had increased to 11. 2 %. the real estate development and construction sector has the highest npl ratio ( 29 % ), while that of mortgages to individuals is contained ( 4 % ), although it is tending to rise. as a result of the major efforts made in terms of write - downs and provisioning in 2012 and the drastic decrease in real estate risk, we can affirm that our banks are able to meet the provisioning needs which may arise this year, in 2013, and also in 2014, if there are any. results in 2013 fifth, the profit and loss account. as we have indicated, in 2012 the large volume of provisioning led to heavy losses. that said, margins performed positively due to the influence of two factors : the fall in interest expenses and the efforts made by many banks to contain their operating costs. particularly strong efforts have been made by banks which have been restructured in accordance with the plans approved by the frob, the banco de espana and the european authorities, within the framework of the memorandum of understanding of july 2012. as for this year, the preliminary data for the first quarter allow us to be moderately optimistic, since an overall profit of more than €4 billion was reported. virtually all the banking groups have obtained profits. in short, as the eu institutions, the ecb and the imf have acknowledged, we are overcoming the banking crisis, although risks and uncertainties persist which mean that we certainly cannot consider the crisis resolved. that said, it needs to be reiterated that there is no better way of normalising credit flows than completing this task. bis central bankers ’ speeches regulatory changes sixth and finally, before discussing the progress made in the banking union project, i would like to refer, very briefly, to the most important changes in 2012 in financial regulation which are directly related to the handling of the banking crisis. the most significant legal change in the financial area was law 9 / 2012 of 14 november 2012 on the restructuring and resolution of credit institutions which strengthens the frob ’ s role and anticipates the future directive which will regulate these processes in europe. royal decree 1559 / 2012 subsequently regulated asset management companies and, in particular, the regime applicable to the sareb. finally, in the area of bank customer protection, mention should be made of royal decreelaw 6 / 2012 of 9 march 2012 which established various measures to protect those mortgage borrow