Reporting Standards for Statistical Purposes: The Experience of Banco de Portugal

Banco de Portugal (BdP) produces statistics to allow an in-depth understanding of the Portuguese economical situation and to comply with international requirements. With this purpose, the BdP collects high amounts of detailed data from a wide array of institutions, much of which derives from their accounting systems. The quality of this process is improved through the use of standard means of reporting. After providing a brief history of the reporting standards utilized by the BdP over time, we look into how XML allowed a great improvement over preceding standards. Finally, we identify an area within the BdP’s reporting standards that needs improvement, that by non-financial corporations, and elaborate on how an XBRL-based reporting standard might best be implemented in Portugal. Given the increasing level of accounting internationalisation, the question can hardly be kept within national boundaries, so our favoured approach is inserted into a European and a Global strategy.