that we at the bundesbank are currently improving data availability. we have established a data pool related to non - financial enterprises in germany which is fed by various sources ( our own information, associations of banks and credit insurers, public information services, etc ). in addition to the banks ’ balance sheet data which allow us to quantify the liabilities of non - financial corporations and households vis - a - vis banks, supplementary information from the data pool on corporations may shed more light on the overall indebtedness of the private sector. here, a possible indicator may be the ratio of non - financial corporations ’ total debt to equity. a second set is composed of profitability indicators, such as return on equity. as regards households ’ assets, the bundesbank has reasonably comprehensive information on their securities held in safe custody with banks in germany. admittedly, these data are supplied on an annual basis only. however, we are going to increase the frequency of the safe custody statistics to a quarterly basis. that is why we may be in a position in due course to monitor the specific developments of securities holdings of households, as well as of other economic sectors such as non - financial corporations, in a more timely manner and with greater precision. turning now to the analysis of financial stability for the euro area as a whole, at least two additional issues arise from a statistical point of view. first, the degree of cross - country comparability of the data and, second, the availability of indicators at euro - area level. we should aim to achieve a sufficiently high degree of coverage and harmonisation for each key indicator for the analysis of financial stability in the euro area. but this is a very ambitious target, even for the medium term. harmonisation and coverage issues may arise in all the three areas, i adressed a minute ago. let ’ s take the banking industry as an example. the escb already collects and compiles a comprehensive and harmonised set of statistics for monetary policy purposes. this allows the derivation of high - quality indicators referring to the business of bank head offices and bank branches located in the countries of the eurozone. however, bank branches / subsidiaries outside the euro area are not covered by these data, and other financial subsidiaries are excluded in general. at the same time, there are indicators covering the entire bank or bank group. these indicators are derived from national supervisory data sources and thus are not harmonised. to make a long story short : there is

one data set which is harmonised but lacks coverage. and there is another one which reflects high coverage but lacks harmonisation. iii feasibility constraints i think we have to tackle these and other harmonisation gaps. furthermore, there is no doubt that the availability of reliable statistical data for financial stability purposes is not yet complete. we are faced with data gaps. there are, however, practical difficulties with regard to gathering additional, and more detailed, statistical data. one possibility to reduce these difficulties is to consider whether more data from commercial data providers could be purchased. however, the scope may not be sufficient as the focus of private providers is on financial market data. in addition, this option could turn out to be quite costly. another option might be to consider extending the statistics produced under the stewardship of the escb in the field of money and banking statistics. however, a good sense of proportion is necessary when deciding on new harmonised statistical requirements. there is a common understanding that producing statistics is a costly matter, in particular from the viewpoint of the data suppliers. any new statistical reporting will place an increased burden on the reporters and strain their resources. and let ’ s not forget that central bank statisticians and data reporters anyway have to cope with a whole bunch of new challenges. examples are the enlargement of the european union, any potential enlargement of the european monetary union, the change in accounting rules, and, last but not least, the requirement of calculating new indices and indicators for banking supervision purposes under the basle ii regime. given all these tasks, it is absolutely essential to set priorities. the highest priority should be attributed to closing data gaps with regard to essential indicators for financial stability such as statistics on the securitisation of bank loans. in order to narrow the data gap in this area we should use existing data with sufficient coverage from other sources. an obvious example is the biannual information by the bis on derivative instruments which is collected from a small number of leading market players, which covers still 80 % of the overall market volume. at the same time, we have to check whether existing statistical surveys could be discontinued in exchange for any new data requirements. for example, regionally disaggregated balance sheet data of banks in germany no longer have analytical relevance because of euro - area membership. in order to keep the costs within strict limits, statisticians may find it helpful to determine the extent to which one and the same data source might serve different analytical purposes