Measures of financial investment and financing by institutional sector are usually reflected in an integrated system of non-consolidated financial accounts and balance sheets without detailed counterpart information. From-whom-to-whom financial accounts and balance sheets, also called financial accounts and balance sheets by debtor/creditor [1] are an extension of the non-consolidated financial accounts and balance sheets. They show a breakdown by debtor sector of the net acquisitions of financial assets (thus showing the sectors on which the assets present claims) and a breakdown by creditor sector of the net incurrences of liabilities (that is showing the sectors acquiring the instruments concerned). This presentation thus provides information on debtor/ creditor relationships and is consistent with a from-whom-to-whom financial balance sheet. However, no information is provided on the institutional units to whom financial assets were sold or from whom financial assets were bought. This also applies to corresponding transactions in liabilities.

The paper describes the from-whom-to-whom framework. It refers further to the detailed presentations of financial investment and financing via securities and other financial instruments, which have a number of uses. In a broader context, they permit the analysis of relationships between institutional sectors and sub-sectors within an economy and also between these sectors and sub-sectors and non-residents (broken down even further by country and sector). Such analyses shed light on sectoral compositions of assets and liabilities, and on potential strengths and vulnerabilities in portfolios.

References:

[1] The 2008 SNA uses the term flow of funds. See 2008 SNA Chapter 27.

Keywords: National accounts; Financial account and balance sheet; Financing and financial investment; From-whom-to-whom

Biography: Reimund Mink works as a Senior Adviser in the Directorate General Statistics of the European Central Bank. He is a member of various European and international task forces (European Task Force on FISIM, Pensions), groups (Inter-Agency Group on Financial Statistics (IAG)) and committees (IMF Government Finance Statistics Advisory Committee). He also was member of the SNA Advisory Expert Group (AEG) and has contributed to the drafting of the 2008 SNA and to the drafting of the new European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), especially of the chapters dealing with institutional units and groupings of units, financial transactions, other flows, balance sheets, insurance, pensions and other social insurance and to the BIS-ECB-IMF Handbook on Securities Statistics.