Business intelligence systems and central bank statistics

Central banks increasingly need to use business intelligence (BI) systems to collect, manage and analyse data in order to inform policy decisions. This report presents the results of a survey conducted by the BIS’s Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC) in 2019. Its main findings can be summarised as follows:

• BI has become an integral element supporting the statistical function in the vast majority of central banks, especially to analyse, present and integrate statistical data.
• Reflecting their various needs, the range of BI tools central banks use is quite large.
• The related technology stack comprises packaged solutions available “off the shelf”, with a strong preference expressed for the business analytics service provided by Microsoft and SAS.
• Visualisation is an important issue when making sense of data, and is particularly key for central banks’ communication.
• Internet-based data dissemination offers users the possibility to interact with central banks’ publications in a dynamic/interactive way. 
• JavaScript Graphing Libraries are the most popular means for generating graphical content for web publication.