As the Bank of Italy operates in a constantly changing environment, analysing monetary, financial and economic events in an increasingly timely manner, by acquiring and processing the necessary data, has become even more crucial.
The data reported by credit and financial intermediaries account for a significant portion of the information used by the Bank of Italy.
The collection of statistical information is governed by a complex regulatory framework: Legislative Decree 385/93 (the Consolidated Law on Banking) and Legislative Decree 58/98 (the Consolidated Law on Finance) which, among other things, establish reporting obligations for credit and financial intermediaries vis-à-vis the Bank of Italy; Regulation ECB/1998/16, as amended, which governs the collection of information necessary for the European System of Central Banks.
Regular reporting by credit and financial institutions has two main objectives. The first objective is to provide a picture of the bank or financial company, making it possible, on the one hand, to assess its financial position and operational risks and, on the other, to analyse its operations and their characteristics. The second objective is to provide financial intermediaries with useful, though not exhaustive, information for assessing customers' creditworthiness and, in general, for analysing and managing credit risk. These data are sourced from the statistical and supervisory reports for credit and financial intermediaries and from the Central Credit Register.
The data collection schemes are arranged according to a matrix model developed by the Bank of Italy, leveraging on experience gained over many years in the field of statistical data collection.
Multiple units of the Bank of Italy cooperate, under the coordination of a collegiate body, the Statistics Committee, to identify the set of information that must be reported.
Additionally, almost all the information flows are produced by financial intermediaries using the PUMA 2 technical infrastructure.
The reports provided by the credit and financial intermediaries are acquired, controlled and validated by a dedicated unit of the Bank, the Statistical Data Collection and Processing Directorate.
Lastly, to perform its institutional tasks, the Bank of Italy collects information from different national and international operators and institutions (for example, financial market data from commercial providers, macroeconomic statistics from the national statistical institute, insurance corporations balance sheet from the national supervision agency, derivative transactions from trade repositories and securities financing transactions from the European Central Bank).
Statistics Committee
The Statistics Committee is an internal collegiate body that steers and coordinates the statistical aspect of the Bank's institutional activities. It focuses on coordinating and monitoring statistical needs, analysing the impact of legislation to minimize the reporting burden of credit and financial intermediaries, and deciding the policies to be pursued within national and international bodies, as well as on the policy for publications and statistical information dissemination.
The Committee is chaired by a member of the Executive Board and is attended by representatives of institutional functions, the Resolution and Crisis Management Unit, the Anti-Money Laundering Supervision and Regulation Unit and the Financial Intelligence Unit, as well as representatives of the IT Services.
Statistical Data Collection and Processing Directorate
The Statistical Data Collection and Processing Directorate is responsible for managing data that are of common interest to the Bank of Italy's institutional functions, for which it can rely on statistics and IT experts.
In particular, it collects all the reports submitted by credit and financial intermediaries (i.e. supervisory, resolution and statistical reports, and Central Credit Register reports); after the necessary checks, it stores the data and makes them available for internal use within the Bank; together with other units of the Bank, it oversees the correct processing of the information and its external dissemination.
The Directorate also manages the Entities Register (i.e. the reference database listing the entities upon which the Bank of Italy's granular surveys are conducted and where each entity is identified with a unique code) and the Securities Database (i.e. the reference data base containing detailed information on the financial instruments that banking and financial intermediaries and other firms report to the Bank of Italy).
It also liaises with international standardization bodies on an ongoing basis to update the models used to represent statistical information.
The quality of the reports is maintained through a careful data processing process: accurate identification of the information to be collected and consequent pooling of the different information needs (whenever possible) into one integrated scheme, support to the reporting agents, verification of the data received, reliability of the internal data processing procedures.
The reports are subject to multiple checks: consistency with the data model and codes; logical and accounting consistency of the data; time series observation and cross-comparison of trends among different credit and financial intermediaries. The Bank of Italy interacts with the reporting entities to identify and correct any errors through a process that is ancillary and parallel to the reporting process.
Directorate General for Information Technology