Business In Ireland 2015

Statistics on the Financial sector are presented in this chapter. The statistics were not collected via the structural business surveys mentioned throughout this publication, but were collected and analysed by the CSO Balance of Payments Division who engage directly with the Financial sector and its regulators on the provision of these statistics. 

The Financial and Insurances Activities sector, NACE K, has traditionally used different terms to describe variables like production value, gross value added and operating surplus. As part of a broad legislative proposal, agreed EU definitions for the Financial and Insurance sectors are currently being developed and should be in use in the coming years. The objective behind producing these Financial sector statistics is to complete the coverage of the business economy in Ireland and to allow meaningful comparisons with other business sectors such as Industry and Services. 

The Financial sector is described by NACE Section K. It includes:

K64 – Financial Service Activities except Insurance and Pension Funding.

K65 – Insurance, Reinsurance and Pension Funding.

K66 – Activities Auxiliary to Financial Services and Insurance Activities.

K64 is dominated by credit institutions which in Ireland are banks and credit unions. However, it also includes activities of holding companies, obtaining and redistributing funds other than for the purpose of insurance, pension funding or compulsory social security among other financial services activities.

K65 includes life insurance companies, non-life insurance companies and reinsurance companies as well as pension funds. This group includes underwriting annuities, insurance policies and investing premiums to increase the portfolio of financial assets.

K66 is the most diverse category and includes all financial auxiliaries including brokerage firms, insurance agents and fund management activities. These services are closely related to financial service activities but are not themselves providing financial services. 

The business operations data presented for the Financial sector in this report covers banks, life insurance, non-life insurance and reinsurance. The detailed calculations of the main indicators for these enterprises are presented here. The calculations are based on an accounting framework where the income and expenses for the reference year 2015 are analysed in detail. See Tables 8.1 and 8.2.