SWIFT The global provider of secure financial
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SWIFT launches four additional indices to help forecast GDP growth

Global co-operative’s messaging traffic data offers proxy for GDP growth in major economies

Published on 11 Oct 2012

 

Brussels, 11 October 2012 - SWIFT, the financial messaging provider for more than 10,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 212 countries and territories, has announced the launch of the SWIFT Index UK, Germany, US and EU27. These four additional indices reinforce SWIFT's Business Intelligence portfolio, and will act as leading indicators of national and regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.

Following the same methodology used for the Global and OECD series of the SWIFT Index, the new indices help forecast GDP growth in the UK, Germany, US and the EU27. Andre Boico, Marketing Director at SWIFT, said: "We are delighted to extend the family of SWIFT indices to cover four major economies. Using the same methodology, in each case we have succeeded in producing forecasts that correlate closely with actual GDP growth. The proven reliability of our forecasts, which are based on actual payments message traffic, confirms that these new indexes will support business decision-making and make a unique contribution to economic modelling."

Key points:

  • Economic indicators are critical to support decision-making by investors, analysts, economists, national banks and policy makers. Economic growth indicators are among the most important of these.
  • The growing complexity of the interconnected, global economy requires reliable predictive indicators of economic growth. But their value depends on a combination of factors: early availability, a robust and transparent methodology, relevant underlying data and wide geographical coverage. Most of the existing indicators do not match one or more of these criteria.
  • The ubiquity of SWIFT traffic makes it a mirror of economic activity. Refined to exclude exogenous events and modelled into an index, this factual data becomes a reliable barometer of GDP growth.
  • SWIFT has developed a methodology for modelling and anticipating GDP growth at global, regional and in some cases national levels. This methodology has been validated by academic experts from the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE - Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium).
  • Since SWIFT began to publish monthly forecasts in March 2012, the SWIFT Index has successfully predicted OECD GDP growth with a limited deviation.
  • The four new SWIFT indices will be available in Q1 2013.
  • SWIFT will be presenting the new indices on Tuesday October 30 2012, at 10 am, at its annual Sibos event, which this year is being hosted in Osaka, Japan.

 

About SWIFT
SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 212 countries and territories. SWIFT enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. SWIFT also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.

For more information, please refer to our website http://www.swift.com/swiftindex or contact:

SWIFT
Press Office
Tel: +32 2 655 3377
pressoffice@swift.com