APRA to begin publishing credit union data

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) announced that it would include data on most credit unions and building societies in its monthly banking statistics publication (MBS), which will be known as its monthly ADI statistics publication (MADIS) from next month. 

The first edition of MADIS, comprising of data for March to July 2019, will be published on 30 August 2019.

The regulator noted that the change follows the implementation of the new Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) data collection from 1 April 2019, which was intended to improve data on key business metrics for ADIs and larger non-ADI lenders.

APRA said that while MADIS data will be similar to MBS data, there will be “improved definitions and consistency under the EFS collection”. 

“The creation of MADIS is another important step [in] our efforts to enhance accessibility and usefulness of APRA’s data publications,” APRA’s executive general manager for risk and data analytics, Sean Carmody, said. 

“The inclusion of credit unions and building societies in the published data set will deliver a new level of transparency across the entirety of the ADI sector. Not only will the new MADIS publication cover a broader range of entities, users will also benefit from higher quality data flowing from the EFS data collection.”

APRA noted that the implementation of the EFS data collection will also result in changes to the prudential regulator’s quarterly ADI data publications, the details of which will be released later.

[Related: APRA finalises mortgage lending reforms]