Circular Letter C2.09-1055 Regarding Balance of Payments Data Collection

2, boulevard Royal L-2983 Luxembourg Télécopie (+352) 4774-4920 E-mail: reporting.banques@bcl.lu ./.
Réf.: C2.09-1055 Luxembourg, le 15 décembre 2009 Circular Letter To all credit institutions Subject: Circular Letter regarding Balance of Payments data collection

Dear Sirs,

The Grand Ducal decree of 10 November 1944, as amended by the law of 28 June 2000, assigns the Banque Centrale du Luxembourg (BCL) and the Central Service for Statistics and Economic Studies (STATEC) the mission to jointly compile a balance of payments for Luxembourg. Furthermore, the BCL compiles the global external position of Luxembourg. These two statistics are compiled to enable Luxembourg to meet its international obligations, particularly those imposed by the European Central Bank (ECB).

The data collection from the banking sector, described in circular BCL 2001/166, was supplemented during 2009 by the implementation of a security-by-security collection from collective investment schemes (CIS) and credit institutions. The data collected based on the new security-by-security reporting is now used for the establishment of the balance of payments and the global external position of Luxembourg. Thus, the use of this data now allows for a reduction in direct “balance of payments” data collection from credit institutions, particularly regarding flows related to debt securities and equity securities, as well as all flows related to CIS.

2, boulevard Royal L-2983 Luxembourg Télécopie (+352) 4774-4920 E-mail: reporting.banques@bcl.lu ./.

1. Modifications Introduced

In this context, the controls that the BCL performs at the directory level will be modified on the following points:

1. The BCL will no longer perform detailed controls on transactions reported with the following characteristics:

Operation Code	Resident Counterparty
424, 429, 444, 449, 492, 473, 474, 478, 479, 535, 536, 421, 441, 422, 442, 300, 301, 308, 309, 336, 335	All 310; 411; 419; 428; 448; 491 ; 492 ; 499 ; 494 ; 498; 640; 650; 711

Credit institutions are consequently no longer required to report these transactions to the directory. However, transactions not covered by the table above must continue to be included.

2. The BCL will, on the other hand, focus on the identification of the resident counterparty for significant transactions reported with one of the following generic codes:

Number	Category of Residents
3332	Natural persons conducting operations of a professional nature with foreign entities or legal entities whose 8-digit number assigned to any VAT-liable entity is currently being assigned 5552

In this context, the BCL wishes to recall that any company subject to VAT also has an 8-digit number assigned by the Registration Administration (the “IBLC” number). The BCL services are available to credit institutions in cases where they are unable to identify the IBLC number for a given company for which they are required to report transactions in the directory.

The BCL and STATEC may also assign fictitious numbers to non-VAT-liable companies (such as SOPARFIs). This fictitious number is not transmitted to the companies concerned and can only be used for balance of payments data collection.

3. The BCL will continue to perform standard controls on operation codes not included in the table above.

Please accept, Dear Sirs, the assurance of our perfect consideration.

BANQUE CENTRALE DU LUXEMBOURG

Germain STAMMET | Roland NOCKELS
Head of Section External Statistics | Head of Statistics Department