Micro-databases and item-by-item reporting, covering different areas of the economy and the financial markets, have been helping national central banks worldwide to circumvent a number of shortcomings as regards conventional data collecting systems. The use of such data for statistical purposes has the potential to make statistical production more efficient, e.g. by delivering significant reductions in respondent burden, higher data quality, and enhanced responsiveness to ad hoc information requests from users.

In line with such approach, the Banco de Portugal (BdP) has been exploring for some time the statistical potential of different micro-databases, namely:

The Securities Statistics Integrated System, a database that records all the information concerning issues and holdings of securities, on both a security-by-security and an investor-by-investor basis.

The Central Credit Register, an all-inclusive administrative database on detailed credit balances by individual borrower, originally created by the BdP to provide credit-related information to the participating institutions, with the aim of helping them in their assessment of the risks attached to extending credit.

The Central Balance Sheet Data Office database, a repository of descriptive and non-consolidated quarterly and annually accounting data on virtually all the resident non-financial corporations.

Work is on-going to integrate the information coming from these different micro-data sources, an endeavour that should enhance the quality of the statistical output, help to fill some of the data gaps revealed by the recent financial crisis and improve the overall quality of the macro analysis.

This paper will review BdP's work in reusing and sharing micro-data for statistical purposes, and will address key operational issues related to the implementation of this approach, as well as the extended usability of these databases, particularly in the context of financial stability analysis.

Keywords: Microdata; Item-by-item reporting; Respondent burden; Financial stability

Biography: Ana de Almeida is currently Deputy Head of the Statistics Department of Banco de Portugal and a representative in the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics. Previously she was Head of the National Financial Accounts and Securities Statistics Division of the Statistics Department and the representative of Banco de Portugal in the Euro Area Accounts Working Group of the ECB, in the Financial Accounts Working Group of Eurostat and in the Working Party on Financial Statistics of the OECD. Formerly, she was Head of the Risk Control Unit of the Pension Fund of Banco de Portugal. Previously she was Head of the Methodologies and Statistical Analysis Unit of Balance of Payments in the Statistics Department and also the representative of Banco de Portugal in the External Statistics Working Group of the ECB and in the Balance of Payments Working Group of Eurostat.