which can then serve the purposes of the different internal and external stakeholders, should be highlighted. to properly manage such detailed, comprehensive and complex information, a robust state - of - the - art data system is of the essence, boosting appropriate it tools and solutions able to respond to the challenges ahead. www. bportugal. pt an outstanding example of the advantages of this joint management of micro - databases that i would like to share with you is the recently taken steps towards the creation of an in - house credit assessment system ( icas ) at banco de portugal. this system, which is being fine - tuned as we speak, further explores the informational potential of both the central credit register and the central balance sheet database and will provide banco de portugal with its own internal credit risk assessment system, thus reducing its dependence on external sources. against the background of the recent economic and financial crisis, these systems have recently been gaining importance within the eurosystem, as can be seen by the increasing number of ncbs that have introduced them. in fact, at the current juncture, a more pressing business case for icas stems from monetary policy purposes, for which icas will provide an evaluation of debtors ’ credit notation. but the benefits of such a system are not exclusive to monetary policy. in fact, there is a broad range of advantages to different business areas, in particular regarding supervision and financial stability. starting with supervision, the credit notations derived from icas could be used not only as a benchmark to gauge those provided by institutions with their own internal notation systems, but also as a way to assess the quality of individual credit portfolios, while potentially contributing to an early identification of specific risks to which institutions may be exposed to. furthermore, the analysis of risks and weaknesses of different economic sectors and the portuguese financial sector ’ s response to them could also be envisaged, thus providing a useful input for stress - testing. as to financial stability, icas ’ s data could also be used as a monitoring tool of the developments of the non - financial sector ( and the potential building up of imbalances ), not only as a provider of non - financial corporations ’ credit risk indicators, but also with the expert judgement of the risk analysts. this tool could serve, at least, two purposes : on the one hand, to assess the fragility of specific sectors of the economy, in particular through the economic and financial analysis of the companies that constitute each of the

##s ; and ( iii ) disclosing econometric estimation techniques applied to microdata. secondly, i want to emphasize the recent launch of the so - called international network of exchanging experiences on statistical handling of granular data ( inexda, for short ), an international network in the field of microdata. banco de portugal is one of the first participants in this structure, along with banca d ’ italia, banque de france, deutsche bundesbank and bank of england. the inexda network will provide a basis for exchanging experiences on the statistical handling of granular data which are accessible to external users, and will approach very relevant issues such as the accessibility of data and metadata, techniques for statistical analysis of granular data and data protection, and procedures for output control. furthermore, inexda offers a framework to investigate possibilities to harmonise access procedures and metadata structures, to please see blattner, l. et al. “ the effect of quantitative easing on lending conditions ”, banco de portugal working paper 8 / 2016. www. bportugal. pt develop comparable structures for existing data, and to further foster efficiency of statistical work with granular data. let me also mention, as a third illustration, the relevance of the funding and capital plans ( fcps ) exercises. these plans - which focus on the solvency, liquidity and profitability of the largest banking groups - include detailed historical and prospective accounting and prudential information ( overall strategies pursued in a 3 - 4 year time horizon ) and are built over harmonized macro scenarios, guidelines and restrictions, thus allowing for full consistency among institutions. on top of its direct relevance for supervision, the analysis of fcps contribute to the prospective assessment of the intermediate objectives of the macroprudential policy ; in addition they can also be used to assess the coherency and sustainability of the projected aggregate trends on credit, funding, financing to the economy, and profitability. as such, this instrument is much suited for the pre - emptive nature of macroprudential policy. lastly, let me also draw your attention to ongoing developments on the collection of loan - by - loan information from banks on the value of collateral and households ’ income. this information allows the calculation of loan - to - value ( ltv ), loan - to - income ( lti ) and debt - to - income ( dti ) ratios for household mortgages on a regular basis, both at the origin