AnaCredit – the new reporting programme

You may not have heard of AnaCredit yet, but the new data collection regime of the European Central Bank will be launching later this year.

AnaCredit stands for “analytical credit datasets”. It will partly address the ECB’s data needs, but it is not a banking supervisory regulation, nor does it require firms to do anything additional to comply with the ECB’s Banking Supervision (Single Supervisory Mechanism).

So, what does it entail and who does it affect? All credit institutions within the eurozone will have to participate in the reporting requirements, while EU member states outside the eurozone can participate voluntarily (Sweden and Denmark have already announced they have signed up). The ECB will also use data from existing national credit registers. Collection of data will support the ECB’s ability to analyse monetary policy analysis and operations, manage risk and oversee financial stability. The ECB says this has become necessary following the financial crash 10 years ago as member states’ economies react differently to economic shocks and this will help it monitor such developments.

AnaCredit will harmonise granular credit and credit risk data across member states, making it easier to compare what’s happening where and why. This will include data on the availability of credit to businesses, particularly SMEs (viewed as the backbone of an economy), which should indicate supply and demand in the various individual sectors of an economy. AnaCredit will also help the ECB monitor levels of corporate debt and their sustainability. Harmonised reporting will also show up cross-border loan exposure of a company to banks throughout the EU, something not currently quantifiable, to monitor risk.

Data will only be collected from legal entities, not individuals, so no one who is an investor or has other personal business with a firm will have their individual financial status collected. It is thought that in member states where large numbers of small-sized credit institutions are extending credit, those institutions may be exempted, but the ECB has not explicitly announced such a measure yet.

The ECB will be collecting data on loans and deposits and many firms will find gathering and reporting the required data challenging. Data to be reported includes credit card debt, overdrafts, other revolving credit and other credit lines, trade receivables, financial leases and other loans, and reverse repurchase agreements and other deposits. (Data on credit derivatives and off-balance-sheet items are outside AnaCredit’s remit.)

New Reporting Programme

Data collection begins on 30 September 2018, and must be reported monthly or quarterly depending on the datasets to be reported. An instrument held by a debtor must be reported if their total debt commitment is €25,000 or more, even if spread over a number of instruments in total.

Firms will have to draw on data attributes from various different data sources within their organisation that concern the reportable instrument, whichever collateral or guarantee is in place to secure it, and counterparties involved in their respective roles. The data sources will include master data, partner/client data, credit data, collateral data, credit risk data, accounting data, COREP and any other relevant reporting sources. To complicate matters, the reporting form contains seven unique identifiers and 94 data attributes that must be completed per loan over the €25,000 threshold.

With 101 separate pieces of information to report per loan, DataTracks has already prepared AnaCredit templates on its platform to make reporting this new data as easy and painless as possible. Test filing begins in June 2018, three months before the first filing deadline and DataTracks can assist with that too. To find out more how DataTracks can assist in reporting your AnaCredit obligations, use our contact form or call us on +44 (20) 3608 1300.