Further, in response to increasing demand for internationally standardized financial statistics, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), at the behest of the ECOSOC Statistical Commission, is preparing a Manual on Monetary and Financial Statistics (hereafter, the IMF Manual) to supplement the 1993 SNA. A number of countries have initiated reviews of their flow of funds accounts in accordance with these developments.
Statistics that provide a highly reliable overview of financial activities are indispensable for tracing changes in the financial structure, for examining the roles of each economic sector, and for considering the implications of these factors for the real economy. Such statistics are also useful in considering various issues concerning financial systems.