The Statistics Department of the International Monetary Fund is pleased to make available to subscribers the International Financial Statistics (IFS) database through an easy-to-use online service. The IFS database contains time series data from 1948. The Web interface allows subscribers to browse the database, select series of interest, display the selected series in a spreadsheet format, and save the selected series for transfer to other software systems such as Microsoft Excel®.

International Financial Statistics is a standard source of international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. It reports, for most countries of the world, current data needed in the analysis of problems of international payments and of inflation and deflation, i.e., data on exchange rates, international liquidity, international banking, money and banking, interest rates, prices, production, international transactions, government accounts, and national accounts.

System Overview

The IFS Online system is based on the IFS CD-ROM Browser product, and many of the functions are quite similar. IFS Online provides the same data coverage as the IFS Browser product. The database contains approximately 32,000 time series covering more than 200 countries and areas and includes all series appearing on the IFS Country Pages; exchange rate series for all Fund member countries, plus Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles; major Fund accounts series; and most other world, area, and country series from the IFS World Tables.

The Country, World, and Commodity Prices Tables, as presented in the monthly printed copy of IFS, are available as selection options. The Economic Concept View provides a cross-country view of the concepts in the IFS by individual or groups of countries.

Capabilities of IFS Online

IFS Online includes the following capabilities:

• browsing the directory tree,
• drilling down through the structure of the database,
• selecting either individual time series or groupings of time series within a table presentation,
• saving selected data and metadata in a variety of formats, including a spreadsheet, and
• saving and loading a query of selected time series.

The Statistics Department envisages that this product will be further developed and enhanced over time, and will be updated on a more frequent basis. Subscribers will be advised of further enhancements as they become available.