Australian Financial Accounts:
OVERVIEW OF DATA SOURCES AND METHODS
Within a Whom to Whom Framework
Amanda Seneviratne
1
Why?
• Recently the ABS has had number of requests about how
ABS compiles financial accounts quarterly in a “to-whomfrom-whom” (counterparty) framework
• This area of national accounting has received more attention
since the global financial crisis and the G20 finance ministers
“data gaps” initiative
• The note is only an introduction to the subject
– Detailed compilation methods are dependent on national
institutional settings and data availability
2
Intersectoral Net Financial Transactions: June Quarter 2011
3
Inter Sector Financial Relationships
• The inter sector financial relationship maps can be used as a
guide to priorities and methods for data collection and
compilation
• The number of institutional units in each sector is a guide to
the difficulty in measuring the sector quarterly, the
timeliness and possibly the reliability of the measurement
• It is clear we can’t afford thorough quarterly surveys of
households or non-financial corporations
• The following is a simplification in terms of sectoring and
instruments. It covers both stocks and flows.
4
Approximate Number of
Institutional Units
Households
~ 9 million
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
General
Government
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
3000 of which 20
financing
Rest of the
World
Very Many
5
Financial Corporations
• Relatively small number of large institutions
– Setting aside the large number of small self-managed pension funds
• Maintain good accounting records
• Prudential supervision for some types
• We aim for complete enumeration of most types of
financial corporation
• Interagency (APRA/RBA/ABS) cooperation in data
collection, quality assurance and usage.
6
Data for Financial Corporations
is central building block for
measurement
Households
~ 9 million
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
General
Government
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
3000 of which 20
financing
Rest of the
World
Very Many
7
Data for Financial Corporations
is central building block for
measurement
Households
~ 9 million
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
General
Government
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
3000 of which 20
financing
1.
Rest of the
World
Very Many
2.
3.
4.
Almost complete coverage of
Financial Corporations
Data broken down by
counterparty (subsectors)
Regulatory and ABS surveys
Intermediaries data from
regulator used for regulatory,
monetary aggregates and
financial accounts
8
Rest of World
• Financial assets, liabilities, transactions, and other flows with
rest of world are required for quarterly International
Investment Flows and Position statistics.
– Difficult to do financial accounts without this significant dataset
• Some recompilation from BPM6 to 2008 SNA is required
• Data by domestic counterparty should exist in this dataset
9
Foreign Investment (IIP) Data is
already collected for balance of
payments purposes
Households
~ 9 million
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
General
Government
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
3000 of which 20
financing
X Data confrontation
Rest of the
World
Very Many
Domestic counterparties required
10
Rest of World (cont.)
• Note financial corporations / rest of world relationship now
has two sets of observations
• Data confrontation for quality assurance of both datasets
• Must decide what to publish in financial accounts
– Australia financial accounts usually consistent with IIP
– Means re-balancing financial corporations
– The luxury of choosing with whom to be inconsistent.
11
General Government
• Australia is a federation: Commonwealth, State, Territory and
Local governments
• However, financial management practices mean that only a
handful of agencies have significant borrowing and
investment roles
– Commonwealth and State Treasuries / Department of Finance
– State central borrowing authorities, Australian Office of Financial
Management
• A small ABS collection of about 20 agencies gives almost
complete coverage
• Securities issues in a security by security database
12
Government Financing Agencies
GFS data not adequate for this
purpose in Australia Small ASB
collection
Households
~ 9 million
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
X
General
Government
3000 of which 20
financing
X
Rest of the
World
X
Very Many
X Data Confrontation
13
General Government (cont.)
• General government data overlaps with financial
corporations and IIP datasets
– More data confrontation opportunities
– More decisions about best data, including Reserve Bank versus Dept.
of Finance
• Data structured in accordance with IMF GFS not sufficient
– Counterparty, instrument detail
– Valuation principles, accrual standards
– more explanation of differences (especially to IMF)
14
Non-financial Corporations and
Households
• Securities issuance by non-financial corporations from equity
and debt market sources (stock exchange, clearance houses)
• Small survey of large corporates to track security holdings
and accounts payable / receivable
– All other financing covered by other sources
• Households residual in securities markets and accounts
payable / receivable
15
Small corporate
survey for accounts
payable/receivable
Households
~ 9 million
Residual in
securities
markets
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
X
General
Government
3000 of which 20
financing
X
Rest of the
World
X
Very Many
16
Non-financial corporations and
Households (cont.)
• Periodic confrontation with household wealth surveys
– Micro / macro comparisons
• No non-financial corporation financial asset and liability data
available in tax system or in summary from corporate
regulators
• Financial Instrument Supply / Use compilation framework
mitigates lack of direct data
17
Small corporate
survey for accounts
payable/receivable
Households
~ 9 million
Residual in
securities
markets
Non-Financial
Corporations
Financial
Corporations
~ 2 million
3000 + 400K
Pension Funds
X
General
Government
3000 of which 20
financing
X
Rest of the
World
X
Very Many
Compilation in Financial instrument Supply / Use framework provides a cross check and
plausible residual allocation
18
Compilation Framework: Financial
Instrument Supply / Use Tables
• Ideally, independent measures of supply and use
• Unconsolidated to a large extent
– Intra-household sector relations consolidated
– Other intra sector asset/liabilities add value to supply / use tables
– Note: ABS thinks unconsolidated sector income and financial
accounts are not meaningful.
19
Supply / Use Framework
Example 1: Transferable Deposits
20
Transferable Deposits Example
• Supply data are from banking regulator (APRA)
• Use data are from various data sources, including
counterparty data collected by regulator
• To the extent that use data do not sum to supply, balancing
requires adjustment of weakest data source(s), in this case
usually “other private non-financial corporations”
21
Supply / Use Framework
Example 2: Listed Equity of Private Non-financial Corporations
22
Listed equity example
•
•
•
•
Unconsolidated
Supply from stock exchange (adjusted for SNA concepts)
Use from various sources
Balanced with weakest data source in this case the residual is
allocated to households for which there is no data source
– Note: plausibility of residual is assessed
23
More Information
• Australian National Accounts: Financial Accounts (cat. no.
5232.0) (and related products)
• amanda.seneviratne@abs.gov.au
• D.Cullen@abs.gov.au
• http://www.apra.gov.au/statistics/ for regulatory datasets
and reporting forms
24