RDP 2022-07: The Term Funding Facility: Has It Encouraged Business Lending? 4. Data

The analysis in this paper primarily draws on confidential data reported to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) by banks (authorised deposit-taking institutions) and non-banks (finance providers that do not accept deposits, including finance companies and money market corporations). We primarily use data collected under APRA's Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) collection. The EFS collection has been available since mid-2019, and has provided comprehensive and accurate data on financial institutions and their lending and borrowing activities. In particular, these data are accompanied by comprehensive guidance on data definitions, and are subject to standards for data quality and audit obligations.^[8] Most of the lending data used to calculate the TFF's initial, supplementary and additional allowances were based on data from the EFS collection. Further detail on our data is set out in Appendix A.

For our first analysis comparing SME and large business, we draw on monthly EFS data covering business credit by firm size, industry and loan type. These data are reported by banks and non-banks that have more than $2 billion of business credit; this threshold is estimated to capture over 95 per cent of total business credit. We supplement this with data reported directly to the RBA for the purposes of calculating the TFF additional allowance.

For our analysis comparing the effects of the availability and take-up of the TFF, we draw on EFS data covering loans and leases. These data are reported monthly by most banks, as well as non-banks with more than $400 million in total assets. Aside from data reported to APRA through the EFS forms, we use RBA data on banks' self-securitised assets.

Footnote

Balance sheet reporting is audited. All information provided by a bank under the balance sheet reporting standards must be the product of systems, processes and controls that have been reviewed and tested by an external auditor. Auditors must also provide attestations about the quality of reporting on business credit data. [8]