Guide to Japan's Flow of Funds Accounts
March 2024
Research and Statistics Department
Bank of Japan
Introduction
The Bank of Japan has been compiling the Flow of Funds Accounts Statistics (the FFA) since 1958, covering the data from 1954. The FFA is released quarterly; preliminary data is released about three months later, and revised data about six months later. In principle, the FFA is revised retroactively once a year.
The FFA is a matrix showing financial transactions among various economic entities, and corresponding stock data on financial claims and liabilities of them. It records movements of financial assets and liabilities among institutional units called sectors, such as financial institutions, corporations and households, for each financial instrument called transaction items such as deposits and loans. Being extremely detailed and having wide coverage, the FFA is very useful, but on the other hand, it sometimes adopts unique principles and concepts, and has original definition of sectors and transactions items. Therefore, in using the FFA, it is necessary to accurately understand its features.
To help users fulfill their needs better, the Research and Statistics Department publishes a booklet explaining the overall concept of the FFA; it also defines individual sectors and items.
The booklet is comprised of the following chapters. The first chapter outlines the FFA, and chapter two explains considerations to be made from a statistical viewpoint. Then, chapter three and four describe definition and scope of each figure by sectors and by transaction items. Compilation method of the FFA is outlined in chapter five. Chapter six details the relationship between the FFA and other statistics in order to provide better understanding of the framework of the FFA.
The booklet mainly focuses on set of principles and concepts underlying the FFA, and has not provided detailed explanation on how each figure is estimated. For estimation method of individual figure, please refer to "Compilation Method of Japan's Flow of Funds Accounts."
Inquiries
Financial Statistics Group, Economic Statistics Division, Research and Statistics Department
E-mail : post.rsd5@boj.or.jp