Page 478 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS177 Jose-Maria S. G.
However data usage has been prevented by problems to access and share
them. Some central banks have been directly tasked with collecting derivatives
transactions data. But most of them have to get this information from the TRs
set up separately to collect it.
Against this backdrop, this paper summarises key findings of the survey
conducted by the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics among
central banks on access to, and use of, trade repository data. The survey was
2
answered by 50 central banks. The main conclusions on data access are the
following. Central banks have relatively good access to granular information
(ie position- or transaction-level data) from the TRs located in their
jurisdictions. But access to data held by foreign TRs is more complex, often
requiring specific authorisation and being restricted to data with a certain level
of aggregation. Concerning data sharing, the survey reveals significant
problems to share granular data to external users. Data sharing within central
banks, and of aggregated data, is less problematic.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 details the main
findings concerning central banks’ access to trade repository data. Section 3
outlines the takeaways on data sharing. Section 4 presents the main
conclusions.

2. Trade repository data access
The OTC reform agenda sought to ensure an effective and practical access
to TR data for public authorities so that they can use this information
adequately. Central banks are among the most interested authorities in
getting access to this information.
Most central banks have some kind of access to the information collected,
although one fifth have no access at all. However, the survey reveals two
problems to access data. First, central banks face limits to access highly
granular data. In particular 65% of the respondents declared that they can
receive “pure” micro information – ie position or transaction-level data (Graph
3
4
1). This ratio rises to 77% for disaggregated data, which are less informative

2 The IFC published a report discussing the main findings. See Irving Fisher Committee (2018),
“Central banks and trade repositories derivatives data”, IFC Report
3 Micro data allows the identification of entities, unless they are anonymised or masked by
deleting or encrypting certain elements of the positions and/or transactions. Micro data are
defined as “data on individual reporting units or specific transactions/instruments, which in
most cases allow the identification of individual entities and therefore considered confidential.
In addition, publicly available data on individual reporting units are considered non-confidential
although they can still be subject to data sharing limitations due to commercial property rights”
(IAG (2017)).
4 Disaggregated data are below the level of aggregated data, and are more likely than
aggregated data to reveal the identity of individual reporting units. Disaggregated data are
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