All glossary entries

A risk control measure applied to underlying assets whereby the value of those underlying assets is calculated as the market value of the assets reduced by a certain percentage (the “haircut”). Haircuts are applied by a collateral taker in order to protect itself from losses resulting from declines in the market value of a security in the event that it needs to liquidate that collateral.

The index of consumer prices calculated and published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, on the basis of a statistical methodology that has been harmonised across all EU Member States. The HICP is the measure of prices used by the Governing Council to define and assess price stability in the euro area as a whole in quantitative terms.

Article 4 of Protocol (No 13) on the convergence criteria referred to in Article 140 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requires interest rate convergence to be measured by means of interest rates on long-term government bonds or comparable securities, taking into account differences in national definitions. In order to fulfil this Treaty requirement, the European Central Bank has carried out conceptual work on the harmonisation of long-term interest rate statistics and regularly collects data from the national central banks, in cooperation with and on behalf of Eurostat. See also European Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat, national central bank (NCB), Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)

See Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP)

High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance

Head of Mission

Banking services which retail customers of credit institutions can access using various kinds of telecommunication device (e.g. telephones, mobile phones, television sets, terminals or personal computers).

Labour costs, including gross wages and salaries (as well as bonuses of all kinds), employers’ social security contributions and other labour costs (e.g. vocational training costs, recruitment costs and employment-related taxes), net of subsidies, per hour actually worked. Hourly costs may be obtained by dividing the sum total of these costs for all employees by the sum total of all hours worked by them (including overtime).

One of the institutional sectors in the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010). The household sector covers individuals or groups of individuals as consumers, but also as entrepreneurs (i.e. sole proprietorships and partnerships). Non-profit institutions serving households are a separate institutional sector according to the ESA 2010, although they are often reported together with households.

high-quality liquid asset

A system that combines the characteristics of RTGS systems (e.g. the continuous processing and clearing of transfer orders) and net settlement systems (the operation of several settlement cycles per day, some form of netting procedure for transfer orders, etc.). See also net settlement system, real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system