As a global network that discusses and develops statistical issues of interest to central banks, the IFC now has 103 members and is an affiliated member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI). It is chaired by Pablo García of the Central Bank of Chile.
Responses to the Committee’s regular membership survey last year underlined the relevance of IFC’s role as a centre to promote knowledge-sharing and collaboration on statistics-related methodologies, initiatives and training among central banks, reflecting their important role in the production of official statistics. In addition, the 2023 survey collected information on the implementation of the Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) standard as well as on the resources and organisation of central banks’ statistical units.
Ensuring wider cooperation with the global statistical community also remained high on the IFC agenda in 2023. A key aspect was related to the international cooperation framework under the G20 Data Gaps Initiative (DGI), especially its third phase that calls for better data to understand climate change, income and wealth, financial innovation and inclusion, and access to private and administrative data and data-sharing. In addition, the Committee was actively involved in the activities of the ISI, in particular on the occasion of its 64th biennial World Statistics Congress (WSC) in Canada, for which several IFC sessions were sponsored on behalf of the central bank community. Furthermore, IFC members and the BIS have continued to follow the ongoing revision of the international statistical manuals – eg covering the System of National Accounts (SNA) and balance of payments (BPM).
They have also contributed to various initiatives to strengthen the international statistical infrastructure – including the global legal entity identification (LEI) system and SDMX.
The main areas covered by the IFC, thanks to the support of its member central banks, the ISI and a number of international organisations, have centred on:
- Evolution and prospects for official statistics: the Committee reviewed the post-pandemic landscape for central bank statistics and will further analyse their evolving contribution to policymaking at its flagship Biennial Conference in August 2024. Moreover, the IFC has continued to participate in international forums dealing with data governance issues, especially in the context of the ISI and the United Nations (UN).
- Micro data: the Bank of Canada and the IFC organised last year a dedicated seminar on granular data in conjunction with the 64th ISI WSC. The objective was to take an integrated view of the use of micro data by central banks, highlighting the analytical value and the tools and approaches needed to unlock its potential as well as the challenges it poses.
- Data science: the IFC conducted an in-depth review of central bank applications supporting artificial intelligence (AI), with a focus on natural language processing (NLP) tools and large language models (LLMs). It has also been organising with the Bank of Italy recurrent data science workshops to review developments in the big data ecosystem and the ongoing adoption of data analytics.
- Communication of official statistics: the IFC published a report last year analysing the recent evolution of the statistical communication function within central banks and identifying potential actions for improvement.
- Fintech: the Committee has continued to work on the statistical implications of fintech developments, not least in the context of the ongoing revision of international statistical classification systems and manuals.
- Sustainable finance: a dedicated IFC working group has been tasked to work on sustainable finance data issues in recent years, especially in the G20 context to develop indicators for green finance – to this end, a specific workshop was coorganised by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) with the support of the European Central Bank (ECB) in 2023. The Committee has also taken several initiatives to spur progress on the carbon content measurement of economic output and on addressing climate change data needs.
Looking ahead, the IFC will continue to promote knowledge-sharing and international cooperation on statistics-related methodologies, initiatives and training. The Committee will also further its work in the various areas outlined above, and several events will be organised in this context with the support of the ECB and the central banks of Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Türkiye.