Page 246 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 3

STS 543 Luís T. D. et al.

The new Portuguese Central Credit Register: A
powerful tool for a Central Bank
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Luís Teles Dias , António Jorge Silva
Banco de Portugal, Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract
The use of integrated micro-databases has been the cornerstone of the Banco
de Portugal’s long-term strategy for data management, allowing for the
fulfilment of its statistical requirements and also contributing with key
information to several business areas within the central bank’s remit. The
Portuguese Central Credit Register (CCR), developed and managed by Banco
de Portugal, constitutes an important case-in-point of this approach. In fact,
CCR data have proved their relevance for a variety of purposes, from, inter alia,
the compilation of very comprehensive and detailed statistics on credit, to the
promotion of a better understanding of the risks underlying banks’ balance
sheets. With the goal of streamlining in a single reporting framework and in a
single database the credit and credit risk data available to Banco de Portugal,
and increasing significantly the detail of information reported, a new loan-by-
loan CCR has recently been developed. The new CCR went considerable
beyond the previous CCR, covering more than 200 attributes, way above the
29 offered by the former. This new and enhanced CCR allows to significantly
improve the depth and completeness of the credit and credit risk data
available for several policy and analytical purposes, namely, banking
supervision, financial stability, monetary policy and economic research. An
interesting case-study is the use of data from the new CCR to assess the
commercial banks compliance with a macroprudential measure that has been
issued by Banco de Portugal in 2018. This macroprudential measure
introduced limits in new credit granted to consumers from 1 July 2018
onwards in terms of loan-to-value ratio (LTV), debt-service-to-income ratio
(DSTI) and loan maturity at origination. The aim is to prevent the accumulation
of excessive risk in the banks’ balance sheets and ensure that households
obtain sustainable financing.

Keywords
Credit register data; AnaCredit Regulation; Macroprudential analysis;
Microdata JEL classification: C80; E42; E58; G21

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