We are analysing global bond markets outstanding. More specifically we compare the most recent global bond market data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) with ISIN by ISIN data available on CMDportal for the same global universe. We analyse issues concerning data agreement between the BIS and CMDportal. See the 'Where is this Data Coming from?' below to understand the data and the filters used.
There are a number of official organisations that publish figures on Global Debt outstanding with their numbers all differ widely. CMDI's previous research highlighted the OECD’s Global Debt Report 2026 estimate of USD 109.5 trillion—a figure that diverges significantly from CMDportal’s calculation of USD 156.7 trillion for global outstanding (>1 year) debt capital market instruments. In this analysis, we extend the same methodology to evaluate the latest release from the BIS's Global Security Statistics dataset.
Quick Take:
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Different Geographic Coverage Drives Discrepancies: CMDportal’s global total of USD 168.3tr exceeds the BIS estimate by USD 9.2tr, driven primarily by CMD’s coverage of 195 countries versus the BIS’s 50. Once restricted to the same 50-country universe, the datasets align within a marginal 1.5% (USD 2.3tr) discrepancy.
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Systemic Sector Misclassification: CMDportal identifies USD 11.5tr more in SSA and USD 14.3tr less in FIG than the BIS. Analysing cross-sectional sector-share discrepancies between countries reveals strong evidence of CRP/SSA misclassification, likely due to national reporting classifying state-backed development banks as financial institutions rather than public agencies.
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High Statistical Agreement: Cross-sectional regression yields a slope of 0.982, indicating an almost one-to-one co-movement between sources. With 96.1% of the variance in BIS data explained by CMDportal, the findings validate transaction-level, ISIN-by-ISIN data as a check for official institution reporting.
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