Improving the BIS debt securities statistics

Given the increasing role of international debt securities markets in global financial intermediation, and based on the recommendation of the Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS), the BIS started to collect and publish quarterly statistics on these markets in the mid-1980s, as a complement to its international banking statistics. The BIS uses information sourced from commercial and institutional databases to compile its international debt securities statistics. Over the past two decades, the BIS has made data on available in printed and electronic form through its Quarterly Review and on the BIS website www.bis.org. Breakdowns are provided by residency and nationality of issuers, sector of issuers, currency denomination and maturity, and instrument. Additional breakdowns are possible and are made available on request. Data include amounts outstanding, gross issuance and net issues. In the 1990s, these data were complemented with domestic debt securities statistics for selective countries. Sources for this dataset consist mainly of publications and websites of national central banks and other national agencies as well as some specific data sent by them on a bilateral basis. Breakdowns are sought with respect to sector and maturity/instruments. A limited number of tables on domestic securities are also included in the BIS Quarterly Review and posted on the BIS website. In 2006 the CGFS Working Group on Financial Stability and Local Bond Markets, with the assistance of the BIS, organised a specific collection exercise covering data on issuance and holdings of debt securities for end-2005 data from a broad range of countries in major financial centres as well as emerging markets (see http://www.bis.org/publ/cgfs28.htm). Some of these datasets were subsequently updated (for end-2006 and end-2007). The CGFS noted the lack of comparability of securities statistics and recommended that central banks work with the BIS to make improvements in the domestic and international debt securities statistics it publishes regularly. In terms of requirements, the CGFS urged better breakdown of aggregate national data on debt issuance by currency of issue, sector of issue, maturity (including residual maturity), and instrument. It also recommended statistical measures of aggregate holdings of securities by broad sector, at least with a breakdown between residents and non-residents. The CGFS suggested that the BIS work with other international agencies to develop a methodological framework for debt securities statistics as well as to investigate the advantages and costs of security-by-security databases. The BIS experience in compiling debt securities statistics from different sources has shown that it is difficult to obtain appropriate and internationally comparable data on debt securities at the individual country level as well as to compile global aggregates from national data. Internal research was carried out in recent year in order to identify ways to improve national securities statistics. The BIS's own research as well as the work of the CGFS confirmed that one of the main reasons for the relatively poor quality of data on securities statistics is the lack of an internationally accepted methodological framework for debt securities statistics. In 2007, the IMF reconvened its Working Group on Securities Databases (WGSD) in response to the recommendations made by the CGFS and the Group of Eight (G8) countries,