Reforms in financial-banking sector start, slowly implemented - Expert-Grup says

Chisinau, 30 March /MOLDPRES/- The reforms in the financial and banking sector have started; yet, the process of real reforms, with impact, is running very slowly, according to "Monitorul Financiar" (Financial Journal), launched by the Expert-Grup Analytical Centre.

“We found out a welcome trend in reforming the financial and banking sector, which needs to be continued. Although we back all actions initiated by authorities in the last period, in order to stabilize and reform the financial and banking sector, we deem it necessary to speed up efforts to this end, with emphasis on measures with systemic impact”, Expert-Grup executive director, analysis author Adrian Lupusor said.

“A good deal of the commercial banks continues to face a low transparency and quality of its owners, which negatively affects the quality of corporate governance”, the expert said. He added that “financial stability framework stays fragmented, the National Financial Stability Committee remains defunct, the mandate of the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) is unclear in this respect and the crises prevention system continues to be weak."

The banking crises settlement framework remains deficient, which makes difficult the liquidation of bankrupt banks, the publication’s author said.

The amendments to the laws on BNM and National Financial Market Commission are welcome, but have come late. It is not clear why the measures on which IMF, World Bank, as well as Expert-Grup have been insisting at least since 2013, started being implemented as late as in 2016, after massive disruptions in the financial and banking sector, which have already managed to cause major economic and social costs. This once again emphasizes the fact that the reforms (not only in financial and banking sector) need to be implemented, in order to prevent and not manage crises or remove their consequences, the Financial Journal also says.

The experts voiced concern about the “slow process of carrying out audit controls at the three banks under special supervision regime. Whereas in EU, such controls last 1-2 months at banks which are dozens of times bigger, as for Moldova, controls at two banks lasted almost twice as much (started in October 2015), and have not been completed at the third bank as yet."

The problems need to be approached with a comprehensive programme of reforms in the financial and banking sector, and among the principal measures, there are: strengthening the independence of BNM, consolidating the monitoring and supervision of banks, enhancing transparency of stockholders in the banking system and the sector's "de-offshorization", the centre said.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)