
Locational banking statistics
About
The locational banking statistics (LBS) measure international banking activity from a residence perspective, focusing on the location of the banking office.
They are compiled following principles that are consistent with balance of payments statistics. The LBS capture the outstanding claims (financial assets) and liabilities of internationally active banks located in reporting countries on counterparties residing in more than 200 countries. Banks record their positions on an unconsolidated basis, including intragroup positions between offices of the same banking group. The LBS capture around 95% of all cross-border banking activity. The availability of a currency breakdown in the LBS, coupled with the reporting of breaks arising from changes in methodology, reporting practices or reporting population, enables the BIS to calculate break- and exchange rate-adjusted changes in amounts outstanding. Such adjusted changes approximate underlying flows during a quarter.
Commentary
Methodology
IBS reporting countries
Estimated global coverage of the locational banking statistics
Convention for country groupings
Reporting Practices
Reporting institutions
Breaks in Series
Latest revisions and breaks
- Countries with data carried forward from previous quarters
- Significant revisions and breaks of the consolidated banking statistics are explained.
IBS reporting guidelines 2019
The Guidelines for reporting the BIS international banking statistics provide definitions and requirements for reporting locational and consolidated banking statistics. The consistency of reporting practices with the Guidelines varies across reporting countries, and key discrepancies are highlighted in countries' summaries of their banks' reporting practices.
The July 2019 version of the Guidelines provides authorities in reporting countries with definitions and requirements for reporting the locational banking statistics and consolidated banking statistics to the BIS. They replace the March 2013 version of the reporting guidelines. Compared with the March 2013 version, the main changes in the July 2019 guidelines are as follows. They incorporate the recommendations of the 2017 study group established by the BIS, as well as the clarifications and revisions proposed by the BIS in 2014. In addition, the allocation of counterparty countries to regions was discontinued, and a few reporting requirements were simplified. Furthermore, some details from other documents, in particular the data structure definitions, were integrated into the guidelines; cross-references to other statistical and prudential standards were expanded; and the guidelines were reorganised to improve their readability.
Click here to view the Previous guidelines
Reporting authorities are encouraged to submit the consolidated banking statistics to the BIS using the SDMX standard. The technical guidelines below provide practical information on how to submit data to the BIS.
Codes for submitting the banking statistics are provided in the data structure definitions. In addition, Excel templates are available as a visual aid for data structure, and to assist reporting authorities who are unable to create SDMX files directly from their system in reporting data to the BIS. Summaries of checks - performed by the BIS to confirm the consistency of reported data - are also provided. Reporting authorities are encouraged to implement these checks in their own systems.
- SDMX technical guidelines
- Data structure
- Data template - Locational banking statistics by residence*
- Data template - Locational banking statistics by nationality*
- Data checks
* Visualisation template only - not for reporting use. Authorities should contact the BIS to request a customised template for reporting.
Research and publications
Bank positions in FX swaps: insights from CLS
A combination of CLS data with BIS statistics shows banks' FX swaps positions alongside the currency mismatches on their balance sheets.
Dollar debt in FX swaps and forwards: huge, missing and growing
FX swaps, forwards and currency swaps create forward dollar payment obligations that do not appear on balance sheets and are missing in standard debt statistics.
The geography of dollar funding of non-US banks
FX swaps and forwards: missing global debt?
What would balance sheets look like if the borrowing through FX swaps and forwards were recorded on-balance sheet, as the functionally equivalent repo debt is? We combine various data sources to estimate the size, distribution and use of this "missing" debt and to begin to assess its implications for financial stability. A key finding is that non-banks outside the United States owe large sums of dollars off-balance sheet through these instruments. The total is of a size similar to, and probably exceeding, the $10.7 trillion of on-balance sheet dollar debt. Even when this debt is used to ...
Covered interest parity lost: understanding the cross-currency basis
Covered interest parity verges on a physical law in international finance. And yet it has been systematically violated since the Great Financial Crisis. Especially puzzling have been the violations since 2014, even once banks had strengthened their balance sheets and regained easy access to funding. We offer a framework to think about these violations, stressing the ...
Global dollar credit: links to US monetary policy and leverage
Banks and bond investors have extended $9 trillion of US dollar credit to non-bank borrowers outside the United States. This has relevance for the discussion of global liquidity and global monetary policy transmission. This paper contributes to this policy discussion by analysing the links between US monetary policy, including unconventional monetary policy, leverage and flows into bond funds, on the one hand, and dollar credit extended to non-US borrowers, on the other. We find that prior to the crisis, banks drew on low funding rates and low-cost leverage to extend dollar credit to non-US orrowers. After the Federal Reserve announced its large-scale bond purchases in 2008, however, bond investors responded to compressed long-term rates by buying dollar bonds from non-US borrowers. The balance of dollar credit transmission has shifted from global banks to global bond investors.
Emerging markets' reliance on foreign bank credit
This article examines the importance of foreign banks in the provision of credit to emerging market borrowers. It documents this along two dimensions: the share of total credit provided and the concentration of claims from different foreign banking systems. The share of credit from foreign banks in total credit to emerging market economies has fallen since the Great Financial Crisis, but still stands at 15-20% on average, with the remainder provided by domestic banks or non-bank creditors. ...
Following the imprint of the ECB's asset purchase programme on global bond and deposit flows
We trace the imprint of the ECB's expanded asset purchase programme (APP) on international bond portfolios and euro-denominated deposits. Our analysis suggests that non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) located outside the euro area sold large volumes of euro area government bonds and kept a substantial fraction of the proceeds as euro-denominated deposits, primarily in UK-resident banks. ...
The growing footprint of EME banks in the international banking system
This special feature explores the role of banks from emerging market economies (EMEs) in global banking. Over the past decade, the cross-border activity of EME banks has been growing at a faster pace than that of banks from advanced economies. This has been largely driven by increasing EME-to-EME interlinkages, which often make up more than half of EMEs' cross-border borrowing. EME banks make use of their global networks of affiliates abroad for the majority of their cross-border lending to other EMEs. In the cross-border interbank market, EMEs with more developed banking systems tend to be net recipients of funds, whereas EMEs with less developed ones tend to be net providers. ...
Common lenders in emerging Asia: their changing roles in three crises
The "common lender channel" is a mechanism that facilitates the spread of financial shocks around the globe. Creditor banks withdraw from previously unaffected countries when highly exposed to the epicentre of a crisis. At the time of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Japanese banks dominated lending to emerging Asia. ...
Dollar credit to emerging market economies
We profile the US dollar debt incurred by borrowers in a dozen prominent emerging market economies (EMEs). These countries account for the bulk of total US dollar debt owed by EMEs. We measure the dollar borrowing of non-banks resident in these economies as well as that of their affiliates offshore, and relate these items to commonly used debt measures. We also discuss the limitations of our data. These data fail to ...
Rapid credit growth and international credit: challenges for Asia
Global credit and domestic credit booms
US dollar credit is growing quickly outside the United States, especially in Asia, and in some economies it has outpaced overall credit growth. Cross-border sources of credit bear watching in view of their record of outgrowing overall credit in credit booms. Foreign currency and cross-border sources of credit raise policy issues.
Bank funding: evolution, stability and the role of foreign offices
The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have furthered a sustained retreat from global banking.
The outsize role of cross-border financial centres
Financial centres that cater predominantly to non-residents account for an outsize share of cross-border financial activity. These so-called cross-border financial centres are typically located in small economies, in contrast to global financial centres located in large economies. Economies of scale and scope benefit global centres, but physical distance works against the tendency of financial activity to concentrate. So do regulation and taxation, which have set cross-border financial centres apart and propelled their rise. At the same time, these centres pose challenges to regulatory consistency across countries and complicate the analysis of capital flows.
Global banks' local presence: a new lens
In this feature, the authors examine a new dataset on global banks' foreign branches and subsidiaries. They find that branches, which facilitate especially international corporate banking, have grown relative to locally focused subsidiaries. Branches are riskier for host countries, and authorities, particularly in advanced economies, seem to have tightened control over them.
Seven decades of international banking
This Special Feature finds that regulatory arbitrage, financial liberalisation and financial innovation drove a multi-decade expansion of international banking, which peaked at over 60% of world GDP before the Great Financial Crisis.
Tracking the international footprints of global firms
As the global economy becomes more integrated, there is a growing tension between the nature of economic activity and the measurement system that attempts to keep up with it. Many policies are still determined by measuring economic activity at the national level. ...
The resilience of banks' international operations
This feature explores the resilience of banks' balance sheets after the 2008-09 financial crisis through the lens of a unique global data set crossing bank nationality and host country. We start by documenting post-crisis changes in the structure of BIS reporting banks' global operations across bank nationalities. We then zero in on the funding mix of banks' foreign affiliates (branches and subsidiaries) on the eve of the crisis, and how it ...
Non-US banks' claims on the Federal Reserve
Non-US banks' affiliates in the United States took on about half of the claims on the Fed that it created to pay for its large-scale bond purchases. They did so largely through uninsured branches that were not subject a new FDIC charge on wholesale funding payable by US-chartered banks.
Unpacking international banks' deposit funding
This feature examines international banks' deposit funding – traditional deposits, repos and interbank lending. We lay out a framework to interpret the observed evolution in the level and composition of this funding.
Seven decades of international banking
This Special Feature finds that regulatory arbitrage, financial liberalisation and financial innovation drove a multi-decade expansion of international banking, which peaked at over 60% of world GDP before the Great Financial Crisis.
Non-bank counterparties in international banking
The BIS has expanded the details that it publishes about banks' balance sheet linkages with non-bank counterparties. These additional details show that banks have increasingly large positions vis-à-vis the non-bank financial sector. ...
Concentration in cross-border banking
Cross-border bank credit is dominated by a small number of very sizeable links between banks in one country and borrowers in another. The largest-sized cross-border banking links are mainly between major advanced economies. Concentration increased up until the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and has abated only slightly since. It is higher for interbank credit than for credit to the non-bank sector. Despite the substantial decline in interbank credit in the aftermath of the GFC, concentration in the interbank segment has remained high. ...
Risk transfers in international banking
Credit risk transfers shift a bank's country exposures from one counterparty country to another. Risk transfer patterns can shed light on how creditor banking systems assess and manage credit risks across counterparty countries. These patterns are closely linked to the business models and international footprint of global banks and corporates. Global banks have taken on more credit risks vis-à-vis some major emerging market economies - in particular in Asia. This points both to the enlarged international footprint of corporates and banks from these countries, and to the ...
Recent enhancements to the BIS statistics
The BIS regularly seeks to enhance its statistical offerings to support monetary and financial stability analysis, in close coordination with central banks and other national authorities and international organisations. The exposure of economies to foreign currency risk is one potential source of vulnerability that has received increased attention in recent years, and the relevant data gaps are being addressed in the second phase of the Data Gaps Initiative (DGI) endorsed by the G20 (BIS-FSB-IMF (2015), FSB-IMF (2017)). Concurrently with this issue of the Quarterly Review, the BIS is expanding the data it publishes on exchange rates, on the currency composition of cross-border positions and on ...
Recent enhancements to the BIS statistics
Enhanced data to analyse international banking
The BIS international banking statistics have evolved over time in response to changes in the international financial system. The latest enhancements to these statistics introduce information about banks' domestic business and add more details about the ...
Assessing global liquidity
Global liquidity has become a key focus of international policy debates over recent years. The concept of global liquidity, however continues to be used in a variety of ways and this ambiguity can lead to potentially undesirable policy responses. This feature attempts to further the understanding of the global liquidity concept, its measurement and policy implications. It argues that policy responses to global liquidity call for a consistent framework that considers all phases of global liquidity cycles, countering both surges and shortages.
FAQs
Data are released every quarter. The target publication dates and the latest data reference period are listed in the Statistics release calendar.
The locational banking statistics are collected under the auspices of the Committee on the Global Financial System and in cooperation with the central banks and other national authorities worldwide. The data are reported to the BIS at a country- rather than individual bank- level. Reporting banks submit data to an official authority in their country, usually the central banks, which then aggregates the data and submits country-level aggregates to the BIS for global aggregations, analysis and publication.
Participating jurisdictions are listed in the following link: Reporting countries.
The most important difference between the LBS and the CBS is the level of consolidation by reporting banks. The LBS are compiled on an unconsolidated basis, whereby the positions (including intragroup positions) of all banks located in a particular reporting country are aggregated following balance of payments principles. By contrast, the CBS are compiled on a consolidated group basis, and thus track the worldwide consolidated positions (excluding intragroup positions) of banks with a controlling parent in a particular reporting country.
Go to Table A5 (locational banking statistics), which shows the data according to the location of the reporting bank. If you select a reporting country, for example Australia, this will open a table showing the lending ("Claims") and borrowing ("Liabilities") reported by banks located in Australia (regardless of the nationality of their parent bank). You can then view the "Claims" column to answer the above question.
Go to Table A6.2 (locational banking statistics), which shows the data according to the location of the borrower. You can select a counterparty country (borrower country), for example the United States. This will open a table showing both the cross-border lending to the United States ("Claims") and cross-border borrowing from the United States ("Liabilities") reported by banks located in the BIS reporting area. To answer the above question, look at the "Claims" column.
Reporting authorities may submit revised data, including revised confidentiality codes, at any time during a quarter. Revisions will be incorporated in the next scheduled publication as listed in the Statistics release calendar.