Statistics co-operation and standards

The ECB works closely with the European institutions and the financial industry on statistical matters.

Statistics at the European level

Responsibility for statistics at the European level is shared between the ECB and the European Commission through Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office.

The exact division of labour is laid out in the following documents:

• Memorandum of Understanding on Economic and Financial Statistics (March 2003)

• Memorandum of Understanding on Statistical Cooperation (November 2024) 

• Memorandum of Understanding for the Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure (November 2016)
• Letter from the European Commissioners to Ms Lautenschläger, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB (November 2016)
• Response letter from Ms Lautenschläger, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB to the European Commissioners (November 2016)

ESS - European Statistical System

The statistical function of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and that of the European Statistical System (ESS – a partnership involving Eurostat and national statistical institutes) cooperate on both an operational and a strategic level.

• Platform for operational cooperation: Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB)
• Platform for strategic cooperation: European Statistical Forum, Memorandum of Understanding on ESS-ESCB cooperation

More information:
European statistics: cooperation between the European System of Central Banks and the European Statistical System

Other international organisations

The ECB also maintains close relationships with other international organisations in statistical matters. Wherever possible, ECB statistics conform to international standards.

Dialogue with the banking industry

The ESCB Statistics Committee exchanges information and views with representatives of the banking industry on new and ongoing initiatives in the field of ESCB statistics via the “Banking Industry Dialogue on ESCB statistics”.

Banks’ data reporting

The European System of Central Banks cooperates with banks on technical issues through the Banks’ Integrated Reporting Dictionary (BIRD) project and the Integrated Reporting Framework (IReF), which both aim to integrate banks’ reporting across statistical domains and countries.

Standards

The international statistical standards are a globally agreed set of recommendations on how to measure domestic and external economic developments.

Statistics that are based on these standards include those on money, credit, banking and financial corporations, as well as those on macroeconomics and the balance of payments.

There are two main standards:

• System of National Accounts (SNA) 2008 – prepared by Eurostat, the IMF, the OECD, the UN and the World Bank. The European counterpart of the SNA 2008 is the European System of Accounts (ESA) 2010. In addition to legally binding methodological standards, the ESA 2010 determines the national accounts datasets that EU Member States must submit to Eurostat (ESA 2010 transmission programme)
• the IMF’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (sixth edition, BPM6)

The SNA 2008, the ESA 2010 and the BPM6 are fully consistent in terms of methodological requirements and sector classifications, making it possible to analyse the interaction of resident sectors with the rest of the global economy.