PUMA Cooperation Between the Bank of Italy and the Intermediaries for the Production of Statistical, Supervisory and Resolution Reporting

The Bank of Italy collects a large amount of data — statistical, supervisory and resolution — from banks and other financial intermediaries in order to fulfil its institutional functions and meet the needs of other national and international authorities, in particular the ECB, the EBA and the SRB. Since the late 1980s, the Bank of Italy has been promoting intensive cooperation with the banking system through the PUMA procedure (Procedura Unificata Matrici Aziendali, Integrated Corporate Matrix Procedure), with the main objective of providing support to intermediaries in their reporting activities. The importance of this approach has been fully confirmed also in the context of the changes to the reporting framework that have been introduced over time at the European level. This paper aims to describe the characteristics of PUMA, discuss the main results achieved over the years, explain its role in inspiring similar initiatives undertaken at the European level, and investigate how this cooperation between the Bank of Italy and the financial system will remain central in the coming years. In an increasingly complex reporting system, PUMA has been instrumental in achieving an efficient balance between the need to support reporting agents, while pursuing objectives of data quality and cost containment, and maintaining the responsibilities for the production of the reporting flows with the reporting entities