Ensuring stability in uncertain times

• Data quality underpins every decision. Accurate, complete, and timely data is essential for banks and supervisors alike, as all strategic and risk decisions rely on it.
• Quality must start at the data source. Achieving high quality reporting depends on accountable business line ownership and data stewardship, while broader supervisory efforts focus on aligning definitions and validation rules to reduce inconsistencies.
• Simplification must balance burden and accuracy. Materiality thresholds and reduced data collections can lower reporting costs, but supervisors must cap how much data quality deterioration they can accept. 

• Semantic integration is key to future reporting. Harmonizing definitions and validation rules across National Competent Authorities, the ECB, and the European Banking Authority (EBA) reduces fragmentation and enables more consistent, reusable reporting.
• Industry–supervisor dialogue is strengthening. Banks and supervisors increasingly work together to improve the reporting ecosystem. 

"Better harmonization of the definitions used in the different reports would ease the life of banks and supervisors alike. There are still too many different sets of validation rules within the various NCAs, and also between the ECB and the EBA. Integrating these will simplify life for banks and, at the same time, increase data quality."

Giancarlo Pellizzari, Head of the Banking Supervision Data Division, European Central Bank (ECB) 

"You need to have responsibilities for data in various parts of the bank. It’s essential that the people doing business understand the data, because everyone else in the data chain is working with it afterwards."

Nils Gerstengarbe, Director in Regulatory Reporting within Group Finance, Commerzbank