BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  debt service to income ratio, the debt to income ratio or the debt to asset ratio, aggregate figures may mask underlying problematic situations, such as pockets of households with unsustainable financial burdens which could lead to defaults and bank losses in case of an adverse macroeconomic scenario.
In this vein, the data can be used for conducting microsimulations as a policy tool. This is already done in other central banks such as those of Finland2 or Sweden3, which incorporate these simulations as part of their regular monitoring of the economy.