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Work on historical monetary and financial statistics in Norges Bank started in the 1990s. We were inspired by Bank of England’s work on the collection of data for UK inflation over 300 years, which appeared in connection with its tercentennial in 1994. In 2001, Norges Bank’s project was extended with commissioned contributions from a national network of academic experts. The aim was to produce a set of historical data series, which covered as wide range as possible, based on available sources, of the past two centuries since Norges Bank was established in 1816. This project provided the basis for constructing composite long-run historical time series in areas of interest for a central bank with a focus on price stability and financial stability. Norges Bank’s project on Historical Monetary and Financial Statistics (HMFS) focuses on the collection and documentation of historical data which describe long-term trends in monetary and financial variables that are central to these core tasks of central banks. Central banks are also interested in a wider set of variables, which help put their core tasks in a more general context. The real economy interacts with the central banks’ core tasks through numerous channels. These channels may evolve over time and are subject to long-term changes in preferences, technology and institutions. Monetary and financial variables are also often in need of a scale variable to portray them in a broader context. It is therefore useful to illustrate developments in prices and quantities related to monetary and financial markets relative to entities such as GDP or GDP per capita. The broad mandate of many central banks today may call for an even wider perspective, which includes key indicators of demography, inequality and climate risks.

Central bank settlement systems are vital for payment intermediation and have an important role in monetary policy and financial stability. Few analyses exist that explain the purpose behind the payments that are settled in these systems. In this paper we categorise payments that settle in Norges Bank's settlement system (NBO) based on their economic purpose. Interbank lending, FX trades, and payments by households and companies were the major contributors to turnover based on value and accounted for 22, 21, and 9 percent of the turnover in NBO respectively.

We investigate the reliability of the 'Furfine filter' often used to identify interbank loans and interest rates from interbank payments settled at central banks. To this end, we have been granted access to records of all unsecured overnight interbank loans during a month from the banks that participated in Norges Bank's real-time gross settlement system. The filter applied was able to identify each of these loans and correctly derive the associated interest rates. The filter's reliability is also supported by additional evidence based on the Norwegian Overnight Weighted Average (NOWA) interest rates beyond the survey month. Sensitivity analyses suggest the share of false or overlooked loans may remain small if the filter design largely incorporates interbank market conventions regarding loan size requests and interests rate quotes.