Methodological notes on the financial accounts of the Spanish economy

Abstract

The Financial Accounts of the Spanish Economy (FASE) set out the economic flows of a financial nature and the resulting financial positions and form part of the Spanish system of National Accounts. They are disseminated in a publication of the same name which includes a summary of the non-financial transactions of the National Accounts. The Banco de España has compiled and disseminated this statistic with annual data since the early 1980s and with quarterly data since 2000. This document describes the methodology used to compile the FASE, which takes as a reference that of the European System of Accounts (ESA 95) contained in Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 and binding on all European Union countries. The FASE are disseminated quarterly at www.bde.es, with a 16-week lag with respect to the reference quarter

an annual edition is disseminated together with the Bank’s Annual Report. The document is structured in seven sections relating to the main methodological features: legal and institutional framework, dissemination of information, compilation and structuring of accounting information, consistency of information from different standpoints, delimitation of institutional sectors and main sectoral information sources and, finally, classification of financial instruments and some salient aspects of their valuation. Fuller details of the conceptual features of this statistic can be found in ESA 95