Reflecting Digitalization in Financial Sector Statistics

Source details

Title: Reflecting Digitalization in Financial Sector Statistics (Session No.: AT 27.07).
Delivery: In-person Training.
Location: Ebene, Mauritius.
Date: February 15-19, 2027 (1 week).
Duration: five-day workshop.
Primary Language: English.
Interpretation Language: French.
Delivered by: the IMF's Statistics Department in cooperation with the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia Regional Capacity Development Center.
Target audience: Mid-level government officials from central banks, financial services supervisors and regulators and other agencies involved in financial sector statistics.
Participant prerequisites: Participants are expected to have a degree in economics/finance or equivalent experience.
Qualifications: N/A.

The workshop frames digitalization in finance as a "fundamental transformation of the financial landscape" that reshapes "how financial services are delivered, consumed, and managed."
Core challenge identified: traditional financial sector statistics and established methodologies built around banks and insurance companies may not accurately capture rapidly evolving digital finance dynamics.
Emphasis on emerging financial actors and instruments, including "fintech companies, mobile payments, peer-to-peer lending platforms, digital currencies, and crypto assets."
The program highlights the need to adapt statistical methodological guidance and data collection to reflect these emerging instruments and market participants, which is framed as "crucial for maintaining the stability and effectiveness of the financial system."

Upon completion, participants should be able to:

Understand the sectoring of new financial players to grasp their business models and data practices.
Define and classify new financial products.
Examine the impact of new financial players and instruments on key financial aggregates.
Identify data sources and collection methods to capture the digital instruments and players into existing statistical frameworks.
Explore non-traditional data sources or big data to improve data collection.
Promote institutional collaboration and harmonization within and cross-border to establish consistent standards and facilitate the comparability of data across jurisdictions.

The workshop will discuss "emerging methodologies" for reflecting digitalization in financial sector statistics.
Focus on collaborative approaches: coordination between macroeconomic statisticians, regulators, policymakers, and the private sector to explore non-traditional data sources.
Active participant involvement: participants are expected to "actively contribute to presentations on country practices and exercises."
Peer learning is identified as "an essential element of the workshop."

Need to adapt statistical frameworks to include non-traditional market participants and instruments to preserve the relevance of financial sector statistics.
Importance of identifying and integrating non-traditional data sources and big data to improve timeliness and coverage.
Necessity of institutional collaboration and cross-border harmonization to ensure consistent standards and comparability of data across jurisdictions.