Use of financial statements for compiling official statistics

BIS Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics, 
European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices, National Bank of Belgium

Venue: National Bank of Belgium, Brussels, 21 October 2027

CALL for PAPERS

This conference on the Use of financial statements for compiling official statistics is organized on the occasion of the 40^th anniversary of the ECCBSO. Its objective is to explore current use cases of non-financial corporations’ financial statements for producing official statistics, with a special focus on their role in the compilation of national accounts, the development of business statistics, the construction of ESG indicators, the advancement of distributional statistics and the use of AI to extract the data.

The conference is jointly organized by the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices (ECCBSO) and the National Bank of Belgium. The main objective is to showcase experiences for making the most of financial statements data by enhancing their accessibility and adequate sharing. 

For the purpose of this conference, the ECCBSO will provide exceptional, one-off access to its standardized dataset of anonymized, firm-level financial statements, corresponding to the national contributions to the BACH (Bank for the Accounts of Companies Harmonised) database. Interested contributors wishing to develop and submit potential research papers will be able to access this dataset under the data‑laboratory frameworks established by the institutions that form the ECCBSO. Authors whose contributions require access to the anonymized dataset should mention this explicitly when submitting their abstract. This information will be used in the evaluation and prioritization process, given that the number of available access slots will be limited and allocated based on the relevance and quality of the proposed research project.

Possible topics include:

1) Current practices in countries on the use of NFC financial statements for national accounts and business statistics compilation

2) Work on sampling and representativeness of NFC financial statements for the compilation of official statistics

3) Distributional aspect: development of experimental statistics on the distribution of NFC indebtedness, value added etc.

4) Use of financial statements to meet new compilation requirements with respect to SNA2025 e.g. on ESG indicators

5) Use of AI to extract and analyse data from financial statements

We invite researchers, data analysts and statisticians to submit possible contributions for consideration by the organizing committee. Accepted contributions will be published in a special issue of the IFC Bulletins series (IFC Bulletins (bis.org)).

The workshop will take place in hybrid format with a preference for physical presentation¹. 

Please send the title and abstract (maximum 400 words) of your paper, indicating if you need access to the anonymized dataset, by 30 September 2026 to the email addresses below. The other important deadlines are:

• 31 October 2026: Acceptance notification;
• 31 August 2027: Submission of papers;
• 8 October 2027: Submission of presentations.

Email addresses:

• eccbso_secretariaat@nbb.be
• IFC.secretariat@bis.org      

A second call for papers may follow closer to the date of the conference. This new call will be limited to contributions that do not require access to the anonymized dataset.

We are looking forward to your valuable contributions and to fostering a meaningful discussion at the conference on the Use of financial statements for compiling official statistics.
 
 

1. The Chatham House Rule (Chatham House Rule | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank) will apply.

ERICA WG has published its document: "European non-financial listed groups: Analysis of 2024 data"

One of the main findings of the study is that the macroeconomic conditions (weak demand, geopolitical tensions and high interest rates) weighed on energy and industry, while services and construction remained resilient during 2024. As a consequence, equity edged up while net indebtedness remained constant. The cost of debt continued to rise, but at a slower pace.

ERICA (European Records of IFRS Consolidated Accounts), is a database, for internal use within the members of ECCBSO, composed of a dataset of around 1,000 European non-financial groups, fully representative of the stock markets of the countries participating in the project (Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain). The data are obtained from publicly available financial statements, having been treated manually, by CBSO statistics and accounting specialists, to be fitted on a standard European format (ERICA format). This manual treatment means, in some cases, the interpretation of the original data, a constraint that readers of this document should bear in mind.

The workshop "New insights from financial statements", co-organised by the ECCBSO, the Bank of Spain and the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), took place in Madrid, Spain in October 2024. This event brought together statisticians, researchers, and data analysts, providing an exceptional platform for discussing research findings related to firm-level information.
 

The proceedings of this workshop have now been published as IFC Bulletin No 65 on 27 August 2025. At the following IFC site - New insights from financial statements - the respective research papers of the four thematic sessions are made available as well as an overview of the findings: "Leveraging corporate financial statements for policy insights". The summary also outlines a roadmap for enhancing the use of financial statements and sustainability data for central bank’s tasks.
 

ERICA WG has published its document: "European non-financial listed groups: Analysis of 2023 data"

The study presents some highlights of European non-financial listed groups, on profitability and financial structure in 2023, as well as financial debt structure and cost of debt. One of the main findings of the study is that the macroeconomic conditions led to a further slow down in growth during 2023. As a consequence, equity was slightly affected while net indebtedness remained constant. The cost of debt increased following the rising trend of euribor rates across all time frames.

ERICA (European Records of IFRS Consolidated Accounts), is a database, for internal use within the members of ECCBSO, composed of a dataset of around 1,000 European non-financial groups, fully representative of the stock markets of the countries participating in the project (Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain). The data are obtained from publicly available financial statements, having been treated manually, by CBSO statistics and accounting specialists, to be fitted on a standard European format (ERICA format). This manual treatment means, in some cases, the interpretation of the original data, a constraint that readers of this document should bear in mind.

The FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) WG in collaboration of the BACH WG releases:

- Profit margins of non-financial corporations in European countries 

The FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) Working Group releases:

- Customer and supplier payment periods of non-financial corporations 

- The financing costs of non-financial corporations

The Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices (ECCBSO) and the Banco de España  jointly organise a workshop on New insights from financial statements on 17 October 2024 in Madrid.

The event will be broadcasted online. The link will be published on 14.10.2024 here. 

Banco de España has published the Statistical Note “Business Sector Classification and Beyond Using Machine Learning”:

• Link to the document.

This publication outlines several applications of Artificial Intelligence within Banco de España's Central Balance Sheet Data Office. Specifically, machine learning models are used for the automatic classification and sectorization of entities.

ERICA WG has published its document: "European non-financial listed groups: Analysis of 2022 data"

The study presents some highlights of European non-financial listed groups, on profitability and financial structure in 2022, as well as financial debt structure and cost of debt. One of the main finding is the strong increase in retained earnings and the development of other reserves led to a steep growth in equity. The financial debt structure remained fairly stable and the cost of debt increased due to the lagged effects of interest rate hikes.

The Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices (ECCBSO) and the Banco de España  jointly organise a workshop on New insights from financial statements on 17 October 2024 in Madrid.

Link to the Call for paper

The workshop aims to bring together statisticians, researchers and data analysts. It offers a place to discuss recent research findings on the use of firm-level information and will take place directly before the annual meeting of the ECCBSO. Its outcome will radiate in the central banking community, help to understand current needs of users of granular corporate information and be an input to determine the work programs of the ECCBSO and the IFC.

We invite researchers, data analysts and statisticians to submit possible contributions for consideration by the organizing committee. Accepted contributions will be published in a special issue of the IFC Bulletins series.

The workshop will take place in hybrid format with a preference for physical presentation. 

Please send the title and abstract (maximum 400 words) of your paper by 31 May 2024 to the email addresses below. The other important deadlines are:

• 14 June 2024: Acceptance notification;

• 30 September 2024: Submission of papers;

• 4 October 2024: Submission of presentations.

Email addresses:       

IFC.secretariat@bis.org

eccbso-sekretariat@bundesbank.de

central.balances@bde.es