BSP should collect more data from other financial institutions, IMF says

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended that the central bank should widen the scope of data collected from nonbank institutions to improve its monitoring of the financial system.

“The compilation of financial soundness indicators (FSI) for other financial corporations (OFCs) — with more than P9 trillion in total assets, representing around 25% of total financial system assets — will support macropruden-tial analysis,” the IMF said in its technical assistance report published on Nov. 17.

The technical assistance mission was done from April 30 to May 14. This was the first that focused on FSIs of OFCs.

Nonbank financial institutions include public and private insurance companies, trusts, government financial institutions, holding companies, mutual funds (money market and non-money market), private pension funds, and other intermediaries and auxiliaries.

The IMF said the global financial crisis has shown the need to widen financial sector data to boost surveillance of the financial system.

For money market funds, the IMF recommended the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to compile data on sectoral distribution of investments and maturity distribution of investments. It, however, noted this could be given less priority given money market funds are only about 1% of the total financial system.

The BSP was also encouraged to have one of its units track private pension funds and start collecting data on the largest relevant funds for the compilation of FSIs.

A hands-on training was provided for BSP’s data compilers on information about OFCs, the IMF said. — L.W.T. Noble