DS Euro indicators REVAMP > Information on data > Monetary and financial indicators > EN

Background information

Monetary and financial indicators include information on interest rates, bond yields, and exchange rates. Central banks seek to exert influence over both inflation and exchange rates, through controlling monetary policy. Their main tool for this purpose is the setting of key interest rates.

Information in the database

This section covers the following 2 main topics:

Interest rates

An interest rate may be defined as the charge for borrowing money, measured as the percentage ratio between the sum payable to the lender and the amount borrowed at an annual rate.

  • short-term interest rates: rates on money markets for different maturities (overnight, 3 months). The dataset includes euro overnight index average (EONIA) and euro interbank offered rates (EURIBOR) with a maturity of 3 months;
  • long-term interest rates, Maastricht criterion: yield on government bonds with a maturity of 10 years. These series are used to define the Maastricht criterion on long-term interest rates, which is one of the criteria for determining if an EU member is eligible to join the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU);
  • euro yield curves: (1 year, 5 years, and 10 years) the information content of a yield curve reflects the asset pricing process on financial markets.

Exchange rates

The collection includes datasets on effective exchange rates (REER) and exchange rates between the euro and other currencies.

  • effective exchange rates: the nominal effective series aims to track changes in the value of a country's currency relative to the currencies of its principal trading partners. Real effective series are a measure of the change in competitiveness of a country, by considering the change in costs or prices relative to other countries;
  • euro versus foreign currency exchange rates: bilateral exchange rates of the euro.

Further reading