CIRCULAR BCL 2021/244

Modification of the statistical collection from credit institutions

Dear Sir, Dear Madam,

On 22 January 2021, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) adopted ECB Regulation 2021/2, concerning the balance sheet of the monetary financial institutions sector (recast). This regulation improves the existing framework for the statistical activities of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) to enable it to perform its functions by defining the natural and legal persons subject to reporting obligations, the confidentiality regime, and adequate implementation and sanction provisions, in accordance with Article 5.4 of the Statutes of the ESCB and the ECB.

All ECB requirements for statistical reporting from credit institutions adhere to three essential rules.

First, the ECB must receive comparable, reliable, and up-to-date statistical information, collected under similar conditions throughout the euro area.

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Second, the reporting obligations set out in the regulations must respect the principles of transparency and legal certainty. The regulations are therefore binding and apply directly throughout the euro area. They impose obligations directly on legal or natural persons, subject to sanctions that may be imposed by the ECB if reporting requirements are not met.

The statistical information subject to reporting, in accordance with ECB requirements, and the minimum standards to be respected are detailed in the aforementioned ECB regulations. In accordance with ECB Regulation 2021/2, National Central Banks (NCBs):

• Determine and implement the reporting framework to be followed by the actual reporting population in accordance with national characteristics.
• Exercise the right of verification or mandatory collection of information that reporting agents are required to provide, pursuant to the aforementioned ECB regulation.

Based on the aforementioned ECB regulations, the Banque centrale du Luxembourg (BCL) has developed a collection system for credit institutions, the characteristics of which are detailed in this circular.

1 Objectives

The collection system, developed by the BCL based on the aforementioned ECB Regulation 2021/2, is intended to meet the following objectives.

• Full coverage of the foreseeable ECB requirements for monetary and financial statistics.
• Full coverage of the needs expressed by the various BCL units as well as the needs expressed by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (STATEC) to cover information needs in the field of financial and non-financial national accounts.
• Minimization of the workload for reporting agents.
• Consistency with data collected for prudential supervision purposes. This consistency, which is not possible for all information to be collected, allows the use of prudential data in the process of compiling data destined for the ECB and contributes to the quality control of collected data.

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• Compatibility with the ESA 2010 standard (European System of Accounts 2010). The conformity of data collected according to the ESA 2010 standard will facilitate their use in the field of national accounting and in the field of the balance of payments and should help avoid additional surveys.

2 Main innovations

Compared to the existing statistical collection system, the main innovations are as follows.

• The update of the definitions and concepts used for the establishment of statistical reporting by credit institutions.
• The modification of existing statistical reports.

2.1 Update of the document "Definitions and concepts for statistical reporting of credit institutions"

The update of the document "Definitions and concepts for statistical reporting of credit institutions" proved indispensable following the recast of ECB Regulation 2021/2. On the one hand, the aforementioned ECB regulation introduces several new items that need to be presented and described. On the other hand, two new country codes have been introduced to identify positions vis-à-vis the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), and the sectoral classification of supranational institutions has been modified.

These updates affect all statistical reports that include these new items and/or for which a breakdown by economic sector based on the counterpart of activities is required.

These are the following reports:

• S 0.1 "Daily report on deposits"
• S 1.1 "Monthly statistical balance sheet of credit institutions"
• S 1.4 "Valuation effects on the balance sheet of credit institutions"
• S 1.5 "Interest rates in EUR"
• S 1.8 "Securitizations and other transfers of claims by credit institutions"

# BANQUE CENTRALE DU LUXEMBOURG
EUROSYSTEM

- TPTBBL Report by title – Balance sheet data
- TPTBBN Report by title – Balance sheet data
- TPTBHR Report by title – Off-balance sheet data - Resident clients
- TPTBHN Report by title – Off-balance sheet data - Non-resident clients
- S 2.5-L "Quarterly statistical balance sheet of credit institutions"
- S 2.5-N "Quarterly statistical balance sheet of credit institutions"

## 2.2 Modification of existing statistical reports

The majority of statistical reports have undergone more or less pronounced modifications.

The major modifications can be summarized as follows.
- The addition of new information, for example on notional positions of common treasury, non-financial real estate assets, leveraged equity, items recognized directly in equity, results of the period, and holdings of own shares.
- The simplification of information related to revolving credits and bank overdrafts as well as credit cards.
- The abandonment of the investment credit and working capital credit items as well as the items listing credits secured by real estate.
- The complete overhaul of report S 1.8 "Securitizations and other transfers of claims by credit institutions". Given that the modifications of ECB Regulation 2021/2 are substantial, it proved indispensable to define new sub-tables to incorporate the new requirements.

## 3 Integration of new ECB requirements into BCL statistical collection

Since the requested modifications do not fundamentally question the current architecture of the reports, it was decided to maintain the existing tables while incorporating the aforementioned additional information.

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# BANQUE CENTRALE DU LUXEMBOURG
EUROSYSTEM

## 4 BCL statistical reporting

Based on the information presented above, the complete inventory of statistical reporting that credit institutions must submit periodically, as well as all instructions for the establishment of statistical reporting, are published and can be downloaded from the BCL website at the following addresses:

http://www.bcl.lu/fr/reporting/banques/index.html
http://www.bcl.lu/en/reporting/banques/index.html

## 5 Quality of transmitted data

It is important to highlight the importance of the quality of data transmitted to the BCL and the necessity to submit this data to the verification rules detailed in the technical documentation before transmission. Only rigorous control performed at the time of data production can meet both quality requirements and imposed deadlines. This point is all the more important as the data collected in this way are controlled by the ECB services before being aggregated with data from other Member States. Any significant error or negligence would have damaging repercussions on the reputation of the entire Luxembourgish financial community.

## 6 Respect of reporting deadlines

The BCL will establish and publish on its website a table listing the precise deadlines by which statistical tables must be submitted.

It is reminded to credit institutions that the BCL must transmit monthly and quarterly statistical reports to the ECB within respective deadlines of 15 and 28 working days following the period to which they relate. It is therefore essential that institutions strictly respect the defined delivery deadlines so that the BCL can meet its commitments within the framework of the ESCB.

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# BANQUE CENTRALE DU LUXEMBOURG
EUROSYSTEM

## 7 Implementation of the new collection

The communication of this information is mandatory starting from the January 2022 deadline; the first reports are therefore those relating to the end of January 2022.

## 8 Testing phase

Credit institutions that wish to do so can participate in a testing phase that will begin in September 2021. Bi-monthly, monthly, and quarterly submissions can be made from October 2021 for the reference period of September 2021.

The BCL will inform credit institutions of the results of these tests and may request the concerned entities to carry out further test submissions to eliminate any remaining quality issues.

Please accept, Dear Sir, Dear Madam, the assurance of our very distinguished sentiments.

**BANQUE CENTRALE DU LUXEMBOURG**
The Management

Roland Weyland
Pierre Beck
Gaston Reinesch