The Moldovan central bank has made significant progress in aligning its financial market surveillance instruments with European standards, stated Anca Dragu, governor of the National Bank of Moldova, during an event to conclude an EU-funded twinning project.
“We have delivered tangible results to market participants and managed to prepare well the SEPA accession file recently sent to the European Payments Council. It is time to move on. We aim to obtain this year a positive assessment of the equivalence of banking legislation with the European one according to the methodology of the European Banking Authority, so that the attractiveness of the Moldovan banking sector for EU investors and the resilience of the financial system in general will increase”, said Anca Dragu.
Leonardo Badea, deputy governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) and also senior partner of the Implementation Consortium, declared that thanks to the twinning project, the NBM has traveled an impressive journey of transformation and reform. “Starting from the elaboration of the Macroprudential Policy Strategy, the development of the stress testing framework, of the necessary regulations in the field of the insurance sector and that for the infrastructure of payment systems, continuing with the elaboration of the methodologies and regulations necessary for the supervision of non-bank lending organizations, increasing the institutional capacity and strengthening financial stability, and finally reaching the preparation of the accession file to the Single Euro Payments Area, we have witnessed the commitment and perseverance of your teams to make significant progress in a relatively short time”, he said.
“We are proud to have contributed together with our partners from Romania and Lithuania to the success of this project. We will remain with the National Bank of Moldova in the future as well, through instruments of technical cooperation”, declared, for his part, the governor of the central bank of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Klaas Knot.
At the same time, the Vice President of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, Asta Kuniyoshi, noted that through the collective efforts of all those involved in the twinning project, substantial results were achieved. “Improving risk management tools in both the insurance and banking sectors will lead the National Bank of Moldova and the supervisory authority on a successful path towards a more resilient economy. The commitment, professionalism and involvement of our counterparts from Moldova, both at the level of experts and at the management level, were essential in promoting the project”, said Asta Kuniyoshi.
“The European Union has invested 1.73 million euros in the twinning project in order to achieve long-term structural reforms that will benefit both citizens and companies. Together we managed to improve the organization and governance of the financial sector, to bring more confidence in its stability and, finally, to help the country move closer to EU membership”, said Adam Grodzicki, deputy head of cooperation at the EU Delegation to Moldova.
The project’s goal was to support Moldova in implementing reforms related to the Association Agreement/Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area Agreement (DCFTA) between Moldova and the EU, and as a specific objective, the strengthening of supervision, corporate governance and risk management in the financial sector. During the 30 months of the project, 139 short-term expert technical assistance missions were carried out, including training sessions held during approximately 1000 working days and 15 study visits to Romania and Lithuania.
