Revision of Flow of Funds Accounts

March 24, 2006
Bank of Japan
Research and Statistics Department

Evaluation and calculation methods have been changed in some areas. As a result, quarterly data are retroactively revised from the end of fourth quarter of 1997 and annual data from the end of FY1979.

For the revised data, please refer to the  Long-Term Time-Series Data.

Major changes

Revision of data

The estimation methods have been changed in some areas. As a result, quarterly data are retroactively revised from the end of fourth quarter of 1997 and annual data from the end of FY 1979.

Major changes in this publication

Central government securities and FILP bonds held by Central bank

The compilation method has been changed as using the publicized market price from the third quarter of 2004. Before the revision, "Central government securities and FILP bonds" was converted into the market value basis based on the book value from the financial statements.

"Securities other than shares", "Shares" and "Outward investments in securities" held by Postal savings and Postal life insurance

The estimation methods of Postal savings and Postal life insurance have been changed as using publicized data from Japan Post. Before the revision, the breakdown of investment assets in trust account was estimated by multiplying the amount outstanding of trust beneficiary rights by the weight of asset-mix in separately managed money trust as a whole, assuming that the composition of investment assets in trust account is identical to the composition of the whole investment assets (designated noncollectively invested money trusts). After the revision, it is estimated by using the breakdown data of operational assets of money held in trust (identifying the amount outstanding of assets including "Shares" and "Outward investments in securities") disseminated from Japan Post.

The estimation methods of "Securities other than shares" ("Central government securities and FILP bonds", "Local government securities", "Public corporation securities" etc.) have been changed as using the publicized market price. Before the revision, they were converted into market value basis based on the book value.

Consumer credit held by Financial institutions for small businesses

Before the revision, the residual of loans other than housing loans by Labor Credit Associations was posted as "Loans to companies and governments". After the revision, the residual is posted as "Consumer credit".

Commercial paper

Before the revision, Commercial paper (CP) was estimated with the data mainly from "Principal Figures of Financial Institutions (Preliminary figures)". After the revision, CP is estimated by using the data for the book-entry transfer system for dematerialized CP disseminated from Japan Securities Depository Center, Inc. from the second quarter of 2005.

Outward investments in securities held by Securities investment trusts

Before the revision, Transaction flow was the term-on-term difference in the stock data. After the revision, the estimation method has been changed as using the data sources including the trading transactions of foreign stock and bonds by securities investment trusts.