BIS Transaction Data for 2012 : €1.73 quadrillion in 5 eurozone countries

The BIS has just published the preliminary data for its Statistics on payments, clearing and settlement systems in the CPSS countries for 2012. You can get the full 582 page pdf file,  but you can also get the data for each of the 23 countries in an Excel sheet or comparative data, also in Excel format.

I used the Excel sheets to compile figures for the five countries in the Eurozone that are covered by the data set. Here they are, in order of the size of the transactions. We'll start with Germany. Financial activity there has been surging ahead to reach €815 trillion, 8.5% up on 2011.

Next comes Belgium with €344 trillion, which went the other way, since it is 8.5% down on the previous year.

Third we have France with €275 trillion, about 6% down on 2011.

Then comes Italy with €177 trillion, 7% down on the previous year.

And finally, the Netherlands managed €118 trillion, which was a remarkable 25% up on 2011.

So, clearly, the traders have been moving their activity around a fair bit, moving a fair bit of their financial trading from France, Italy and Belgium to Germany and the Netherlands in particular. I However, I note that the total value of financial transactions in just 5 Eurozone countries was still over €1.7 quadrillion (€1 729 070 billion to be precise) - up 1%.

So, I think my suggestion that the ECB could easily use a small FTT on all Euro denominated transactions is still very viable as either (a) a way to raise revenue, or (b) to remove excess money from the economy.  This second option would be a great way to allow direct debt free money injection into the economy without risking inflation.