Moldovan cabinet approves amendments to legislation on banks

Chisinau, 15 October /MOLDPRES/-The cabinet today approved amendments to the law on the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) and on National Commission of Financial Market (CNPF), meant to fortify the independence of the two institutions.

Thus, according to a completion to the law on BNM, “no public authority or any other third party can approve, suspend, cancel, censor, postpone or condition the entrance into force of documents of the National Bank or influence the issuance of its final document in any other way." 

Also, the normative documents issued by BNM are not subject to legal expertise by the Justice Ministry. The National Bank will send its documents, upon adoption, to the Justice Ministry for registration.

The draft law also sees that “the National Bank, the members of its management bodies and its staff have no contravention, civil or criminal responsibility for the acts or deeds or for failure to fulfill some acts or deeds in exercising duties set by the law of the National Bank."

Exceptions are cases in which the courts ascertain carrying out by these persons, with dishonesty or as a result of gross negligence, of any act or deed, related to BNM exercising its duties, which caused damage to third parties, including the bank, state and other public institutions.

Under the draft, CNPF “has organizational, functional, operational and financial independence”, and its activity “will not be limited by any authority”. As in the BNM case, the normative documents issued by CNPF are not subject to legal expertise of the Justice Ministry.

The draft also sees “creation of a single central depositary, as a single entity able to exercise operations of depositing financial instruments."

The draft was developed for implementing the recommendations by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, formulated after assessing Moldova’s financial system within the financial assistance programme.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor M. Jantovan)