The aim of EEG6/Working Group 6 (EEG6/WG6)G6 is to design the messages to support the compilation of the Balance of Payments (BOP) statistics.
The partners in this project will ultimately be the enterprises (direct declarants), the corporate banks, the Central Banks and the (inter)national statistical administrations.
EEG6/WG6 has close working relationships with the EDIFACT Balance of Payments (EDIBOP) Task Force, one of the task forces set up under the Committee on Financial, Monetary and Balance of Payments Statistics chaired by Eurostat.
This Task Force was responsible for the development of a strategy for the collection of Balance of Payments statistics in terms of EDIFACT while EEG6/WG6 was in charge of the standardisation process necessary to support this strategy.
The statistical reporting requirements for BOP data were integrated by EEG4, the group responsible for financial messages, into the electronic payment order information exchanged between enterprises and corporate banks. These restructured EEG4 messages were granted Status 1 in 1995.
EEG6/WG6 developed so far four new messages: and uses two profiles of GESMES.
A commercial bank reports to the Central Bank the debit and credit transactions.
· BOPBNK
A commercial bank reports to the central bank its own transactions and portfolio transactions.
An aggregated declaration sent by an individual enterprise to a central bank or national statistical office.
· BOPINF:
The beneficiary informs its bank of the nature of a transaction.
Aggregated BOP information is sent by the collection agency to an international statistical organisation. BOPSTA is implemented as a dataset in GESMES (based on the Status 1 version reached in March 1995).
The BOPxxx messages reached Status 1 in September 1994 and in the IMF(2) Guide for Balance of Payments Reporting, one chapter is dedicated to the EEG6 BOPxxx messages..
For BOPSTA, trials have been carried out in most countries of the European Union, with Eurostat, the OECD, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These international organisations, as well as the remaining Member States and even Japan will be involved in more pilot operations during 1997.
France, Finland and the Netherlands are now using BOPDIR, BOPCUS and BOPBNK on an operational basis. Trials are carried out in Germany and Italy for BOPDIR, and more trials of the four messages should start soon in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, France and the Netherlands.
As part of the DSIS project Eurostat has advised the European Monetary Institute (EMI) fiche 9 project on the use of GESMES and in particular has played an active role on the GESMES task force which has developed the GESMES/CB profile of GESMES. GESMES/CB will be used between Central banks and the EMI and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) for the exchange of time series data related to the Monetary Union.
In the near future, GESMES/BOPSTA will be integrated into the more generic GESMES/CB profile.
The group should consist of representatives from Central Banks and statistical bodies.
This Working Group will work on behalf of EDI Expert Group 6 - Statistics (EEG6):
· Liaise through EEG6 with:
The technical Assessment Group to ensure standard structuring of messages and segments
The maintenance Group to ensure acceptability and compatibility of the proposed data maintenance requests
The Awareness and documentation Groups to ensure that information is kept up-to-date
The relevant Pan European Groups and other User Groups to ensure that their particular requirements are met in the development of UN Standard Messages (UNSMs)
Before submission and dissemination to other EDI Expert Groups (EEGs) or other structures of EBES, all written documents produced by the group must receive an EEG6 agreement
· Establish and maintain a work plan agreed with the EEG6 and in accordance with the agreed modus operandi
· Survey and study existing pilots or pre-EDI systems
· Identify the Pan European Groups, User Groups or statistical bodies
· Carry out a data flow analysis on the exchange of BOP and monetary statistical data between customers and banks, banks and central banks, central banks and statistical bodies
· Study the methods for reporting financial statistical data via EDI, i.e. either using existing messages or designing and developing specific statistical messages
· Make recommendations for new or revised data elements (including qualifiers and codes) in co-operation with the other Expert Groups and with the other EEG6 Working Groups
· Identify metadata, data elements, code lists and classifications needed in these statistical messages
· Design and develop the corresponding statistical messages, segments, data elements and code lists
· Identify the areas in which progress can be made quickly