individual banking groups. in addition, not only banks, but also insurance companies, pension funds and ideally the entire financial system, including the shadow banking sector, should be covered in order to effectively help policymakers identify potential sources of systemic risk. furthermore, data with sufficient granularity are instrumental in macro - prudential analysis in order to take both averages and distributions into account. in turn, the microfoundations of aggregates must be explored. in seeking ways to overcome these shortcomings, i am impressed by the convincing and – in fact converging – arguments, proposals and suggestions that have emerged during the discussions at this conference. when considering the different ways in which we can try to close the existing data or information gaps, there are essentially three options : i ) launch a new data collection effort ; ii ) make better use of existing data ; and, perhaps most importantly, iii ) revisit the data collection processes that are currently in place. we are fully aware that, irrespective of whether the first or second options are adopted, we will in any case have to review our existing data collection processes. bis central bankers ’ speeches as regards the collection of new data, it is widely agreed that we cannot merely impose additional reporting requirements on reporting agents – irrespective of the size of the data gaps that we need to fill – before having thoroughly considered all other possible alternative solutions. while an overall increase in the reporting burden may well be justified in individual cases, insofar as it is clearly supported by a cost - benefit analysis, this should only be the last resort after all other options have been exhausted. for instance, concerning the issue of how to make better use of the existing data, work is under way to help reduce the number of overlapping data collection efforts. a prominent example of this is the work being carried out under the auspices of the ecb and the european banking authority ( eba ) to reconcile credit institutions ’ statistical and supervisory reporting requirements. in this context, i would like to recall that the second version of the classification system linking the requirements of the ecb ’ s monetary and financial statistics with the supervisory reporting templates ( finrep, corep and large exposures ) developed by the eba was published last month on the websites of both the ecb and the eba. i welcome and encourage all initiatives to review our data collection processes in a comprehensive way. a strategic shift towards granular, multi - purpose data collection and

jose manuel gonzalez - paramo : future challenges for central bank statistics speech by mr jose manuel gonzalez - paramo, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the sixth ecb statistics conference, frankfurt am main, 18 april 2012. * * * ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the executive board of the european central bank ( ecb ), let me warmly thank you for your attendance at and valuable contributions to the sixth ecb statistics conference. please allow me to make a few concluding remarks before the end of this successful event. this is the last time that i will be able to attend this conference as a member of the executive board of the ecb and i greatly appreciate this opportunity to address such a distinguished audience. as the media and the markets repeatedly remind us every day, there is much at stake as regards the future of the european project today. indeed, the credibility of european integration is being challenged for reasons that no responsible policy - maker can afford to disregard. although the european system of central banks ( escb ) has been successful in achieving its main objective, which is to maintain price stability, let us not forget that, under article 3 of the statute of the escb and of the ecb, the escb is also responsible for contributing to the stability of the financial system. this is why i greatly appreciate the focus and title chosen for this conference, which reflect the contribution of central banking statistics to both the maintenance of price stability and the mitigation of systemic risks. the system and processes for producing statistics that are used directly for monetary policy purposes are well advanced in terms of their accuracy, timeliness and coverage. the compelling question is therefore whether these statistics could also serve the needs of financial stability policies and macro - prudential supervision. as you very well know, the answer to this question is “ yes, but with some limitations ”, or rather “ yes, but the data currently available are not sufficient ”. rather than being discouraged by this, i would call upon you to accept this shortcoming as a challenge to be taken up in your future work. but what exactly are the most pressing challenges that we face in this area? as you have already discussed in detail throughout the conference, monetary statistics tend to provide us with aggregated data. there are, of course, very good reasons why this is the case, but for the purposes of macro - prudential analysis, it would be more useful if the data were also consolidated at the level of