This seminar demonstrates the importance of the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC) as part of getting the central banking community together in exploring the synergies and benefits of using big data for central banking purposes. In this aspect, I would like to thank the coordinators, in particular Bruno Tissot (BIS) and Claudia Huber (from the IFC secretariat) and Per Nymand-Andersen, from the ECB, and to the leaders of the four pilot groups.

Statistics in general, and those produced by central banks in particular, are a public good. Their production is paid for by the taxpayers, with most of the reporting burden falling on banks, businesses and individuals. It is the responsibility and duty of the central banks to make the results accessible to interested users in modern and easy-to-use form. But it is also a unique opportunity for the central banks to demonstrate their value and relevance to the public. The wealth of central bank statistics is an enormous asset.

The Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB), Austria's central bank, views itself, in the area of statistics, as the Austrian Competence Centre for Financial Statistics. As such, its task is not only to produce financial statistics mandated by different national, European or international legal commitments, but also to disseminate the data to different user groups and interested parties. In this regard, the Bank's function relates specifically to monetary statistics, all data concerning banking supervision, interest rate statistics, financial accounts, balance of payments and international investment position, investment fund statistics, and payment system statistics. 3

This paper examines the developments in the holdings of securities of households, and is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a general assessment of the use of security by security information derived from a central master file and reports of custodian banks and end-investors. Section 3 describes in detail the structure and the portfolio shifts in the holdings of tradable securities of households in the last ten years reflecting also the change in the preference for different types of securities, mainly towards investments in mutual fund shares. Section 4 illustrates the asset allocation of different types of mutual funds held by households and compares the differences to the investment by households made directly in different types of debt securities and quoted shares.

Monetary governance refers to the combination of the legal framework, the strategy and the operational framework of monetary policymaking in a particular country. In the economies in transition of Central and Eastern Europe, the institutional framework of monetary policy was practically created from scratch from the beginning of transformation. Six years of transition inspire us to ask what has been achieved. In this study we intend to highlight the shift from direct instruments to indirect instruments of monetary management. Furthermore, the paper gives a comparative overview of the different institutional setups of monetary policy in the countries examined. Our study is restricted to the CEFTA countries, i.e. the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, which appear most advanced in their respective degrees of monetary transition. 2 ) These countries also aspire to join the European Union along with five other transition economies. Sooner or later they will also voice an interest in becoming members of the prospective European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).Though this perspective is still very remote - especially since the third and final stage of monetary union has not even started yet - we believe it is useful to examine the monetary frameworks in these countries in comparison to the monetary framework prepared for the conduct of monetary policy by the European System of Central Banks in EMU as published by the European Monetary Institute in early 1997. 3 ) In this study we focus on targets and instruments of monetary policymaking and dwell only briefly on the question of central bank independence. 4 ) We discuss exchange rate policy only within the context of monetary policy, concentrating mainly on the impact of capital flows on the effectiveness of monetary management. We do not go into a detailed description of the centrally-planned episode and first steps, as the topic has already been discussed comprehensively by Duchatczek and Schubert (1992 and 1993), nor do we touch on the issues of regulation and supervision of the banking industry. Specifically, we do not discuss the impact on monetary policymaking of bailouts of commercial banks by central banks. The paper consists of five sections. After the introduction, in section 2 we briefly outline the tenets of the modern monetary framework in market economies with particular reference to the monetary framework developed by the EMI. In section 3, which is the core part of the paper, we analyze the evolution of the monetary framework in the five CEFTA countries. In section 4 exchange rate policy and regimes are briefly discussed in the context of monetary policy issues. Section 5 starts with a brief summary of the paper to proceed to the main conclusions. 2 Theoretical Underpinnings of Sound Monetary Policy The theoretical standard for the institutional setup of monetary policy in developed market economies includes recommendations for central bank independence, monetary policy targeting, instruments, and the interdependence of monetary and exchange rate policy. The literature on these issues is still developing, with new studies steadily adding to our knowledge.