In recent years, sectoral financial accounts and balance sheets (SFAs) have acquired a significant role within the System of National Accounts (SNA), built on the traditional description of real sector economic aggregates and extended with information on financial flows and stocks. The recent financial crises have underlined the importance of a detailed approach to the sectors of the economy, in particular the financial sector. The financial sector plays a key role in the intermediation of financial transactions and ensures consistency between the lending and deposit decisions of different institutional units in the economy, moreover, intermediation is different depending on the type of financial institution involved, but also on the financial instrument used. Financial assets and bonds comprise a complex set of instruments, which have different effects on creditors and debtors. Another category of information provided by CFBS results from the behavior and quality of the counterparty. For example, if an institutional unit increases its liabilities, it is important to see who is the counterparty that has funded these liabilities and assumes the risk of possible default.
At the global level, the development of the CFBS has become a priority in the development of macroeconomic statistics. Important steps have been taken to redefine the framework of the System of National Accounts and to provide additional, detailed information on financial flows and stocks.
CFBS are given particular attention due to the importance of the information provided for financial stability analysis in assessing leverage across sectors of the national economy, including the comparative analysis of CFBS indicators across countries, as a result of major financial crises and the spillover of a country's domestic conditions into the global financial system.
Compiling data under the CFBS will improve macroeconomic statistics and allow the assessment of systemic risks of the country's sectors and sub-sectors, financial instruments and markets.
The CFBS outlines five key benefits in financial stability analysis: access to granular information down to the sub-sector and financial instrument level, distribution of information to the general public, improved macroeconomic statistics, improved policies and economic knowledge building.