Real Financial Services UN STATISTICS DIVISION Economic Statistics

Real Financial Services UN STATISTICS DIVISION Economic Statistics Branch National Accounts Section UNSD/ECA National accounts workshop November 2005 1

Identifying financial services Financial institutions charge for some services explicitly and some implicitly. Deposits and loans attract implicit charges and these instruments are included in the calculations of FISIM. Other instruments may attract FISIM but will not be included unless a clear allocation to users is possible. Thus, in practice, FISIM may be limited by convention to loans and deposits.

Calculating FISIM Old FISIM = the total property income receivable by financial intermediaries minus total interest payable, excluding own funds New FISIM = (r. L-rr)y. L + (rr - r. D)y. D Where : rr r. L y. L r. D y. D = = = including loans from own funds Calculated as: FISIM = (r. L-rr)y. L reference rate Rate on loans Stock of loans Rate on deposits Stock of deposits

Prices and volumes : FISIM • For measuring the volume of output of financial services implicitly charged it is necessary to identify those services that form the set of output. • No directly observable price or quantity representative of the output of financial services indirectly measured

Prices and volumes : FISIM Ideally a direct deflator of the output at current prices should be constructed as a PPI that reflects the margin measure of FISIM. However the nature of financial services cannot easily be connected to price and quantity units. Besides, the change in quality is an important issue in financial services. The length of opening hours for bank branches, the proximity of a local branch, the quality of investment advice are some central quality features of financial services.

Prices and volumes : FISIM In the absence of direct deflators, one of the following approaches is recommended: • The rate of change of the volume indicator can be derived using the rate of change of stocks of loans and deposits deflated by a general price index (e. g. the GDP deflator) on which the base year margin can be applied. • Direct output indicator method. Break down the different characteristics linked to financial services (e. g. numbers and value of loans and deposits). For each of the characteristics an appropriate volume indicator is to be derived. The volume indicators are then weighted together.

Prices and volumes : insurance services The measurement of the output of non-life insurance services at current prices is obtained using a formula based on the difference between premiums (plus adjusted premium supplements) and adjusted claims. Ideally a direct deflator of the output at current price should be constructed as a PPI. However, this margin measure of the output of non life insurance does not lead to any easy interpretation of the nature of the quantity and price and, thus, this ideal index is generally not available.

Prices and volumes : insurance services Statistical offices do calculate price indices for non-life insurance services included as a PPI or as a CPI. These price indices, called here “premium price indices”, measure the change in the price of insurance policies with fixed characteristics. They are different from the ideal index, and should not be used to deflate the current price output unless there is evidence that the deflator for claims moves with the premium price indices.

Prices and volumes : insurance services In the absence of this ideal deflator, it is recommended to compile a direct volume indicator using one of the methods proposed, and obtain the price index as the ratio between the current price series and the volume series:

Prices and volumes : insurance services Direct volume measure Obtain a direct volume measure of the output (and by extension, the consumption) of non-life insurance services by extrapolating the current price measure of the base year by the rate of change of a volume index, which is obtained deflating gross premiums earned by a premium price index (PPI or CPI, depending of the context). When the premium price index covers premium supplements, it is advisable to use the rate of change of a volume index compiled as gross premiums plus adjusted premium supplements deflated by this extended premium price index.

Prices and volumes : insurance services Deflated premium method In the absence of adequate premium price indices, a volume indicator can be compiled using quantity indicators such as the number of policies, by line of product (house-owner insurance, motor vehicle insurance, third party liability, etc. ) appropriately weighted preferably by net premiums or, when not possible, by gross premiums.

Prices and volumes : insurance services For some countries the data requirements for the above methods cannot be met and so, it may be necessary to resort to simplistic measures; for example, estimating the rate of change of the volume of output as equal to the rate of change of the volume of inputs to the industry. The inputs should cover labour, intermediate consumption, and capital services.

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