New tables for holders of Treasury bills and unstripped bonds and the principal components of stripped State debt

Last September saw the start-up in Spain of the new pan-European TARGET2-Securities (T2S) settlement platform, which raises standards of quality, flexibility and efficiency in securities settlement. One consequence of this migration is that a portion of the information used to compile tables 22.3 to 22.8 of the Statistical Bulletin, which included various breakdowns of the State debt securities-holding sectors, has ceased to be available.

To continue disseminating these breakdowns, use will be made of information on holdings of securities provided by holders themselves (in the case of a large portion of the financial sector) or by depositaries (for the remaining holding agents). This information is currently received following the rules of Regulation (EU) No 1011/2012 of the European Central Bank concerning statistics on holdings of securities. 

As this Regulation refers to outright holdings, the new edition only has data on “portfolios to maturity”. This information is presented in two new tables, for Treasury bills (new table 22.3) and for Unstripped bonds and the principal components of stripped debt (new table 22.4). The time series begins in January 2016 and includes portfolios as at the last calendar day of the period. As a further change in relation to the previous edition, the respective holdings of insurance corporations, on one hand, and pension funds, on the other, are disseminated separately.

So as to retain in the edition, for some time, the information that had hitherto been provided, the former tables have been re-positioned at the end of chapter 22 in a new section “D) Past information. Book-entry debt market”, numbered from 22.31 to 22.36, which correspond to the former tables 22.3 to 22.8.