Definition: Other volume changes in financial assets and liabi...

Category: ESA 1995

Any changes in financial assets and liabilities that are not due to financial transactions recorded in the financial account, that are not attributed to holding gains and losses recorded in the revaluation account, that are not changes in classifications and structure and that are not due to catastrophic losses and uncompensated seizures are to be recorded here.

Other volume changes in financial assets and liabilities n.e.c. includes:

a) allocations and cancellations of SDRs: For SDRs not even a notional liability exists. Therefore, the mechanism by which SDRs are created (referred to as allocations of SDRs) and extinguished (cancellations of SDRs) is not treated as one that gives rise to transactions but rather to entries in the other changes in the volume of assets account. Allocations of SDRs increase the financial assets of the monetary authorities, cancellations of SDRs decrease their financial assets;

b) other volume changes related to defined benefit pension funds: Defined benefit pension schemes are those in which the level of pension benefits promised to participating employees is guaranteed. Benefits are related by some formula to participants' length of service and salary and are not totally dependent on the assets in the fund. For defined benefit schemes, an entry in the other changes in the volume of assets account captures changes in the actuarially determined liability that result from changes in benefits structure, which are to be distinguished from changes in the age and service composition of the beneficiary pool. Examples of changes in benefit structure include changes in the formula, reductions in the pensionable age, or funding for an annual increase (usually defined as constant x per cent year) in future pensions or in all pensions in the course of payment;

c) exceptional losses of currency or bearer securities because of, e.g., fire damage or theft;

d) writing-off or writing-down of bad debts by creditors: Unilateral recognition by a creditor that a financial asset can no longer be collected, due to bankruptcy or other factors, and the consequent removal by the creditor of that financial asset from his balance sheet should be accounted for here, along with the removal of the counterpart liability of the debtor. However, in cases where the debtor institutional unit is controlled by the creditor, the writing-off or writing-down of debt by the creditor, not due to bankruptcy, is recorded in the accumulation accounts;

e) statistical discrepancies concerning financial assets and liabilities between the closing balance sheet and the corresponding opening balance sheet.

Other volume changes in financial assets and liabilities n.e.c. does not include:

a) cancellation of debt by mutual agreement between debtor and creditor (debt cancellation or debt forgiveness): it is treated as a transaction between the creditor and the debtor and not as another change of volume;

b) debt repudiation: the unilateral cancellation of a liability by a debtor is not recognised in the system. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=CA-15-96-001&mode=view