Financial assets and liabilities (AF.)

7.20 Definition:

Financial assets (AF.) are economic assets, comprising means of payment, financial claims and economic assets which are close to financial claims in nature.

7.21 Means of payment consist of monetary gold, special drawing rights, currency and transferable deposits.

Financial claims entitle their owners, the creditors, to receive a payment or series of payments without any counter-performance from other institutional units, the debtors, who have incurred the counterpart liabilities.

Examples of economic assets which are close to financial claims in nature are shares and other equity and partly contingent assets. The institutional unit issuing such a financial asset is considered to have incurred a counterpart liability.

7.22 Contingent assets are contractual arrangements between institutional units, and between them and the rest of the world, which specify one or more conditions which must be fulfilled before a financial transaction takes place. Examples are guarantees of payment by third parties, letters of credit, lines of credit, underwritten note issuance facilities (NIFs) and many of the derivative instruments. In the system, a contingent asset is a financial asset in cases where the contractual arrangement itself has a market value because it is tradable or can be offset on the market. Otherwise, a contingent asset is not recorded in the system.

7.23 In the system, each financial asset has a counterpart liability, with the exception of those financial assets classified in the category monetary gold and special drawing rights (AF.1).

7.24 The classification of financial assets and liabilities corresponds to the classification of financial transactions. Therefore, the definitions of the categories, sub-categories and sub-positions of financial assets and liabilities and the supplementary explanations are provided only once in the ESA - in the financial transactions chapter. The balance sheets chapter does not repeat the definitions and their explanations in its main text but it provides in its Annex 1a summary of all assets and liabilities defined in the system.

Table 7.1 classIFICATION OF ASSETS

AN.11 Fixed assets

AN.111 Tangible fixed assets

AN.1111 Dwellings

AN.1112 Other buildings and structures

AN.11121 Non-residential buildings

AN.11122 Other structures

AN.1113 Machinery and equipment

AN.11131 Transport equipment

AN.11132 Other machinery and equipment

AN.1114 Cultivated assets

AN.11141 Livestock for breeding, dairy, draught, etc.

AN.11142 Vineyards, orchards and other plantations of trees yielding repeat products

AN.112 Intangible fixed assets

AN.1121 Mineral exploration

AN.1122 Computer software

AN.1123 Entertainment, literary or artistic originals

AN.1129 Other intangible fixed assets

AN.21 Tangible non-produced assets

AN.211 Land

AN.2111 Land underlying buildings and structures

AN.2112 Land under cultivation

AN.2113 Recreational land and associated surface water

AN.2119 Other land and associated surface water

AN.212 Subsoil assets

AN.2121 Coal, oil and natural gas reserves

AN.2122 Metallic mineral reserves

AN.2123 Non-metallic mineral reserves

AN.213 Non-cultivated biological resources

AN.214 Water resources

AF. FINANCIAL ASSETS
(AF.1 + AF.2 + AF.3 + AF.4 + AF.5 + AF.6 + AF.7)

AF.1 Monetary gold and special drawing rights (SDRs)

AF.11 Monetary gold

AF.12 Special drawing rights (SDRs)