In response to financial crises since the 1990s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has developed standards to promote data transparency and support the credibility of statistical systems. In 2012, in the wake of the latest global financial crisis, the IMF supplemented these standards with a further comprehensive tier "Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus" (SDDS Plus).

Building on the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), under which Germany has been publishing statistical data on real, fiscal, financial and external sectors via a central access point since 1996, the new standard requires additional economic and financial statistics results to be published with a view to enhancing the information provided for financial stability analysis and crisis prevention in the context of ongoing economic and financial integration. The new standard is aimed in particular at countries with systemically important financial sectors.

In November 2014, Germany announced that it would join the SDDS Plus and since mid-February 2015 it has, in an initial stage, been publishing data for six of the nine additional data categories. These comprise sectoral balance sheets, general government operations, holdings of debt securities broken down by debtor and creditor sectors, and participation in the IMF surveys "Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey", "Coordinated Direct Investment Survey" and "Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves". For the other three categories, general government gross debt, financial soundness indicators and assets and liabilities of non-bank financial intermediaries, it is planned to implement the requirements by the end of the designated transitional period (end of 2019) at the latest.

The Bundesbank as well as the Federal Statistical Office and the Federal Ministry of Finance have undertaken to produce the prescribed indicators for the relevant sectors and to make these available on the National Summary Data Page (NSDP) for Germany.

The publication dates for the individual data blocks are announced at least four months in advance on the Bundesbank's website. The metadata contain the key methodological, conceptual and institutional framework for the German indicators.

The IMF continually monitors compliance with the standard and comments on this annually for all SDDS Plus members on the IMF's website.

The Bundesbank publishes the following data as part of SDDS Plus.