The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today jointly released the third and final part of the Handbook on Securities Statistics, which covers equity securities issues and holdings. The aim of the Handbook is to assist national and international agencies in the production of relevant, coherent and internationally comparable securities statistics for use in monetary policy formulation and financial stability analysis.

The Handbook is the first publication of its kind dealing exclusively with the conceptual framework for the compilation and presentation of securities statistics. As such, it directly addresses one of the recommendations endorsed by the Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors of the Group of Twenty Economies (G20) concerning the need to fill data gaps and to strengthen data collection. Recommendation 7 of the report The Financial Crisis and Information Gaps, prepared by the Financial Stability Board Secretariat and IMF staff, called on central banks and, where relevant, statistical offices, particularly those of the G20 economies, to participate in the BIS data collection on securities and to contribute to the further development of theHandbook.

Existing international statistical standards, such as the System of National Accounts 2008 and the IMF Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, sixth edition, provided the foundations of the Handbook. It has also benefited from comments of experts from central banks, statistical institutions, and international organisations.

The first part of the Handbook, which covers debt securities issues, was released in May 2009 and the second part, covering debt securities holdings, was released in September 2010. TheHandbook can be downloaded from the websites of the BIS, the ECB and the IMF, respectively.