On 6th January 2017, the Banca d'Italia, the Banco de Portugal, the Bank of England, the Banque de France and the Deutsche Bundesbank have launched INEXDA, an international cooperative project exchanging experiences on the statistical handling of granular data for re-search purposes. 'Statistical handling’ covers issues such as the accessibility of data and metadata, techniques for statistical analysis of granular data, procedures for confidentiality and security of data, and methods of output control.

INEXDA provides a framework for investigating possibilities to harmonise access procedures and metadata structures, to develop comparable structures for existing data and to further foster efficiency of statistical work with granular data. The ultimate aim is to facilitate the use of granular data for analytical, research and comparative purposes by users outside the participating institutions, within the limits set by the applicable confidentiality regimes. Through the Memorandum of Understanding, the five signing central banks have agreed to engage in a pilot exercise which envisages, first, an extensive stock-taking of available datasets and existing procedures and, second, the investigation of harmonisation possibilities at different levels.

Participation into INEXDA is open to other central banks, national statistical institutes and international organisations.

INEXDA promotes the G20 Data Gaps Initiative II, in particular recommendation 20, address-ing the accessibility of granular data.

The INEXDA secretariat is provided by the Deutsche Bundesbank for the next two years and can be contacted at INEXDA.secretary@bundesbank.de.