The Banco de España compiles, prepares and publishes a broad set of economic and financial statistics. These include those relating to the functions assigned to it under the Law of Autonomy of the Banco de España and, as a member of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), those relating to the functions assigned to the European Central Bank (ECB) in the area of monetary policy, external transactions, holdings of foreign reserves, the working of the payment system and supervision of financial corporations. The Banco de España is also responsible for compiling statistics under the Spanish National Statistics Plan.
The Banco de España compiles, prepares and disseminates statistics in accordance with the principles relating to the institutional environment, statistical processes and high quality statistical output established in the Public commitment on European Statistics by the ESCB. This commitment entails the use of internationally agreed standards, guidelines and good practices that are consistent with the European Statistics Code of Practice and the IMF Data Quality Assessment Framework.
In this setting of commitment to the highest quality standards in the compilation of statistics, Spain has adhered to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard data initiative at the highest level (SDDS+). This Standard establishes certain requirements as to methodology, periodicity, releases and accessibility of data in 30 categories, the bulk of which are the responsibility of the Banco de España. In addition, the statistics underlying the indicators used in the mechanism for the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances in the European Union (the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure, or MIP) are subject to further quality assurance by Eurostat and/or the ECB in their respective areas of competence, for which purpose these two European institutions work in close cooperation (see MIP quality).