Selected Issues on the Treatment of Nonperforming Loans in Macroeconomic Statistics

摘要

At its October 2001 meeting, the Intersecretariat Working Group on National Accounts concluded that the existing statistical guidelines regarding the treatment of nonperforming loans were inadequate, and it asked the International Monetary Fund to establish an Electronic Discussion Group (EDG) on this topic. A task of the EDG was to review the criteria in the System of National Accounts 1993 (1993 SNA) for identifying and recording nonperforming loans, and to determine whether additional or different criteria should be applied. In this note, recommendations are made on a number of important questions, and these recommendations are briefly justified. In particular, the treatment of loan principal (that is, how should nonperforming loans or loans more generally -- be valued), loan interest (that is, should interest be accrued on nonperforming loans), and operating surplus (how should profits be measured) are separately discussed. This note does not attempt to address every macroeconomic statistical question, but instead focuses on questions that are particularly important to the construction of the International Investment Position, the International Transactions Accounts, and National Income.