The balance of payments is a record of a country's international transactions with the rest of the world. This is equivalent to the transactions between residents of a country and non-residents. The balance of payments is divided up into the current account and investment and other capital transactions.These transactions, which are recorded by a double- entry system of book-keeping, involve goods, services, transfers, loans granted or received, market securities, foreign exchange etc.
International trade in services is shown in the current account balance of payments statistics and forms part of what is known as "invisibles". The current account balance constitutes the sole source of comparable data on international cross-border statistics on services