Standard Chartered Bank has reiterated that its premise Consumer Price Tracker (SC-PCPT) is not intended to replicate the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) produced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), adding that the platform does not provide a meaningful proxy – for either headline CPI, or any of its underlying components.
The bank’s position comes on the heels of recent launch of its Consumer Price Tracker in Nigeria.
In a statement from the bank, it notes that its SC-PCPT is merely aimed at providing a real-time snapshot of price trends in certain food items, using innovative crowd sourcing technology. The statement further stresses that the publication of the SC-PCPT price tracker is a private sector initiative, using privately-generated crowd sourced data, from a smaller number of locations in Nigeria, largely in Lagos and Kano with limited, data capture in Abuja and as such, does not lay claim to data on a national-scale, nor should it be interpreted as official data.
The bank recognises the NBS as the main national agency responsible for the development and management of official statistics, and the authoritative source and custodian of these statistics.
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“The NBS engages in the collection of data in each of Nigeria’s 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory and our price tracker does not try to ‘second-guess’ or ‘replace’ the official data produced by the NBS, which remains – for all of the reasons outlined above – the most authoritative source of statistical information on the Nigerian economy,” the statement adds.
“Ultimately, Standard Chartered Bank hopes to be able to draw firmer conclusions about the relationship between its price tracker and other economic variables. However, it is important for the bank to reiterate that the entire exercise is aimed only at using technology in a way that it enhances the understanding of current trends in Nigeria,” according to the statement.
Standard Chartered Bank’s recent investment in the data collation exercise is a commitment to its customers and stakeholders alike. By providing additional analysis of trends in the Nigerian economy as it observes them in real-time, it hope to boost the level of investor engagement in Nigeria.
