Projects funded by IPA EU funds in Bank of Albania

In 2014, Albania received the status of candidate country as a result of Albania's reform efforts in recent years and acknowledgement of the European Union (EU) for the progress achieved so far. Bank of Albania (BoA) played a key role in this process due to its contribution to the achievement of the macroeconomic stability. The European Union continues to work closely together with the Albanian institutions to support reforms and prepare the Country for the next steps to be accomplished for the integration process. In this regard, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks have supported the Bank of Albania in achieving its objectives with a view to the European integration process of the country.

21 September 2022 – The Deutsche Bundesbank and the European Commission launch EU-funded follow-up programme to further support central banks and banking supervisory agencies in EU candidate countries and potential candidates from the Western Balkans

 

The Deutsche Bundesbank, together with 19 national central banks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the European Central Bank (ECB), have today launched an EU-funded programme to benefit the Bank of Albania, the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Banking Agency of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Banking Agency of Republika Srpska, the Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo, the Central Bank of Montenegro, the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia and the National Bank of Serbia. The aim of the programme is to further strengthen the institutional capacities of the final beneficiary institutions, notably by enhancing their analytical and policy tools and by transferring the best international and European standards into national practices. The European Union (EU) supports the programme through its Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA III).

At the kick-off event held today at Banca d’Italia, Senior Deputy Governor Luigi Federico Signorini reaffirmed the importance of international technical cooperation as an instrument for institutional dialogue, contributing to building prosperity and peace. The strategic significance of this project in the wider framework of EU accession is underscored by the aim and breadth of the programme and is especially relevant in the current circumstances of widespread geopolitical, economic and financial challenges.

Mr Florian Hauser from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations underlined that “the programme represents an important contribution to improving economic governance and enhancing institutional framework in the Western Balkans. It supports the preparation of the Western Balkans central banks for their integration into the European System of Central Banks.” Ms Alexandra Hachmeister, Director General at the Deutsche Bundesbank, highlighted the importance of achieving sustainable results and the relevance of relationship building.

Over the course of the next 36 months, the Bundesbank, together with the partner central banks and with contributions by the ECB, will organise an intensive regional training programme on key central banking and supervisory issues. The training will focus particularly on the areas of anti-money laundering, banking supervision, financial stability, financial consumer protection and financial inclusion, bank resolution, communication, financial markets, information technology, monetary policy research, payment systems, statistics, EU integration, governance policies, accounting and internal audit. There will also be three policy workshops for decision-makers on payment systems, cash management and governance issues. Furthermore, the programme will support the implementation of specific bilateral measures in addition to the regional training events.

The programme is being implemented by the Bundesbank as its coordinator in partnership with the Nationale Bank van België/Banque Nationale de Belgique, Българска народна банка (Bulgarian National Bank), Česká národní banka, the Bank of Greece, the Banco de España, the Banque de France, Hrvatska narodna banka, the Central Bank of Ireland, the Banca d’Italia, Lietuvos bankas, the Banque centrale du Luxembourg, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Narodowy Bank Polski, the Banco de Portugal, Banca Naţională a României, Banka Slovenije and Národná banka Slovenska. The European Central Bank will contribute to the project’s implementation.

Bilateral Measure between BoA and Bank of Spain

The Phase II of the EU-funded Regional Programme for Strengthening the Capacity of the Central Banks in the Western Balkans aims to further strengthen the institutional capacities of the final beneficiary institutions, notably by enhancing their analytical and policy tools and by transferring the best international and European standards into national practices. In this regard, Bank of Albania (BoA) introduced its need to review Legal Services.  Bank of Spain (Banco de Espaňa) was offered to support BoA Legal department to better understand and define its role within the organization.

A study visit and one expert mission, took place in May and September 2023. They were led by three experts from the Bank of Albania participating in the meetings organized by Bank of Spain at its headquarters and three experts coming to Tirana form Bank of Spain for follow up meetings.

The primary goal of the missions was to share the experiences of both Legal Departments with regards to the composition and delivering of legal services in central banks. The focus of discussions were how both central banks structure their legal departments and organize their work, the challenges they face in delivering legal services as part of a central bank and how to best address them based on their experiences.

The knowledge gained from the cooperation with the experts of the Bank of Spain, who shared their knowledge, experience and established practices, was of great importance for Bank of Albania in the process of improving the tools and quality of legal services.

 

Bilateral Measure between BoA and National Bank of Romania

Following the implementation of EU funded Programme for strengthening the central bank capacities in the Western Balkans with a view to the integration to the European System of Central Banks Phase II, HR Department of Bank of Albania (BoA) has welcomed, the Bank of Albania, the expert mission from the National Bank of Romania, led by the Director of HR Department Mr. Mugur Tolici. The bilateral measure (BM) in the area of human resources is focused on studying European best practices and materializing those in the BoA’s training policies. The mission of experts followed the study visits of the BoA’s representatives in Bucharest earlier this summer.

This BM will be completed with another expert mission scheduled to take place in November 2024.  

In more details, this BM aims at:

  • Identifying gaps between the current situation and the desired situation of skills needed for people to perform at their highest potential within the Bank;
  • Developing plans and training paths for new employees;
  • Organizing and hosting internships tailored for college students in order to put in place the best practices.

1. October 2019: The Twinning Project “Enhancing Bank of Albania’s alignment with EU Acquis” funded under IPA 2015 programmes. The project started on October 2019 and is led by Banca d’Italia, with the Deutsche Bundesbank as junior partner and the contribution of the National Bank of Romania and the Banque de France.

The objectives of the Project are to provide support to the Bank of Albania (BoA) to strengthen: macroeconomic, financial stability, auditing, supervision and payment system in its preparation for membership in the ESCB and eventually the Euro system.   The project is divided into the following sub-components:

  • Sub-Component 1.1 Banking Regulation: aims at supporting the Bank of Albania in developing new sub legal acts for the implementation of the most recent Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) standards and guidelines - among which a prominent role plays Basel III standards - in line with the European acts implementing such standards and guidelines in the EU;
  • Sub-Component 1.2 Financial Stability: This sub-component aims at supporting the Bank of Albania in assessing its compliance to the EU macro prudential rules and framework, with a particular focus on the need for approximation to ESRB recommendations. A new policy paper would then need to be drafted;
  • Sub-Component 2.1 Monetary Policy: The main objective of the monetary policy sub-component of the twinning program is to improve the Bank of Albania’s quarterly Monetary Policy Report in terms of effectiveness of the communication about the stance of monetary policy to the public;
  • Sub-Component 2.2 Statistics: A new manual aiming at aligning the Bank of Albania’s monetary statistics and financial accounts with the ECB standards;
  • Sub-Component 3 Internal Audit: aims at strengthening auditing capacity functions in accordance with the European framework and International best practices;
  • Sub-Component 4.1 Payment Systems: This sub-component aims at supporting the Bank of Albania in developing new sub legal acts required to complete the implementation of the European Union Payment Account Directive, which has introduced new rules aimed at strengthening customer protection and comparability of costs related to payment accounts for consumers;
  • Sub-Component 4.2 Payment Systems: This sub-component aims at supporting the Bank of Albania in defining: (i) an oversight policy framework in coherence with the Eurosystem approach and (ii) a set of recommendations for security of internet payments in accordance with the Securepay Forum and EBA regulations;
  • Sub-Component 4.3 Payment Systems: The aim is to develop a gap analysis followed by a roadmap on ECB Target 2 system;
  • Sub-Component 5.1 Human Resources: aims at developing new guidelines aiming to approximate to ECB standards regarding the recruitment process, recruitment of external applicants and conditions of staff employment.
  • Sub-Component 5.2 European Integration: aims to prepare the structure and fundamentals for a roadmap to design the role and challenges of the European Integration Office, in ways that can lead to the development of a successful outcome.

During the first phase of the Twinning project an intense activity between the experts of both the Member States and the Beneficiary Country was on the refinements and calibration of the Twinning Project program. To this aim, the Resident Twinning Advisor (RTA) had several meetings with the Heads of various Departments and the staff of the Bank of Albania, in order to design an effective and efficient work-plan. On the 19th of December the kick-off visibility event of the Project was organized at the premises of the Bank of Albania (Press Release and the Governor’s speech).

Until end February, almost all activities proceeded regularly and in a very fruitful manner.

However, the second quarter of the Twinning project has been disrupted by the outbreak of the Covid-19. Due to this situation, the project restarted on remote mode on 1st of July 2020, through videoconferences and it is foreseen to be concluded on 18 January 2021.

Link:  https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/newsletter-cooperazione/2020-newsletter-cooperazione/newsletter_special_edition_Albania.pdf?language_id=1

2. March 2019  The Programme “Strengthening the Central Bank Capacities in the Western Balkans with a View to the Integration to the European System of Central Banks” is a EU-funded project for central banks and banking supervisory institutions in the six Western Balkans countries: Bank of Albania, the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Banking Agency of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Banking Agency of Republika Srpska, the Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo, the Central Bank of Montenegro, the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia and the National Bank of Serbia. The aim of the programme is to further strengthen the institutional capacities of the final beneficiary institutions, notably by further enhancing their analytical and policy tools and by transferring the best international and European standards into national practices.

The Deutsche Bundesbank, together with 17 national central banks, and with contributions by the ECB, has organized an intensive regional training programme on key central banking and supervisory issues consisting of 20 training events with capacity for up to 360 training places. The remaining training activities will focus particularly in the areas of: banking supervision, financial stability, financial consumer protection and financial inclusion, recovery and resolution, monetary policy, payment systems, statistics, compliance and EU integration, governance policies, accounting and internal audit, and will be provided by experts from the national central banks of the ESCB and the ECB. There will also be two policy workshops for decision-makers on resolution of non-performing loans and governance issues. Last but not least, in addition to the regional training events, the programme will finance the implementation of specific bilateral measures to be defined in the meetings of the Programme Steering Committee.

Link: https://www.bundesbank.de/en/press/press-releases/eu-supp

3. 2014: The Need Analysis Project for Bank of Albania led by European Central Bank, in partnership with 11 Central Banks of EU. This project was implemented within the broader context of ECB’s “Technical cooperation with central banks of Western Balkan countries, to prepare their central banks for membership of the European System of Central banks (ESCB)”. The beneficiaries were the central banks of EU candidate and potential candidate countries in this region. The Project for BoA was funded through the EU’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance 2013. The purpose of this Project was to strengthen its institutional capacities, through the identification of legal and organizational criteria, as well as the needed resources for approximation to the standard institutional and operational framework of the ECB, in view of Albania’s integration in the EU and, consequently, of bank of Albania’s in the ESCB.   The Project with the ECB and partner central banks was implemented in three stages and focused on 14 functions of the Bank of Albania: Finance/Accounting; Financial Stability; European Integration; Communication; Human Resources; Internal Audit; Banknotes; Legal;  Monetary operations; Monetary Policy; Payment System; Statistics; Banking Supervision; Information Technology.

In the first stage, operational objectives serving as benchmarks for the next stages were identified, reflecting the standards/minimum requirements that bank of Albania should meet under the EU accession process. In the second stage, after defining and agreeing on the benchmarks, the experts from EU central banks had stock-taking missions at the bank of Albania, meeting with the experts and managers of each field to assess the actual status of the bank of Albania in each of the 13 fields of the Project. During the third and final stage, the gap between the actual framework of the Bank of Albania and the set benchmark operational objectives was assessed. In the final report, the experts emphasised that Bank of Albania has made considerable progress in implementing its tasks. Overall, their analysis points out that Bank of Albania is a professional institution, strategically concentrated, transparent and with good technical capacities. Many regulations and practices of the bank of Albania are in line with European standards. While the report focuses on the regulations and procedures that still need to be approximated to the European Union framework, it highlights that central bank experts commend the achievements of the bank of Albania related to EU membership.

Link: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2014/html/sp140417.en.html 

 

4. 2010 -2012:  The Twinning Programme “Strengthening the institutional capacity of the Albanian Central Bank, particularly in the areas of banking supervision, statistics, payment systems and the implementation of monetary policy” in favour of the Bank of Albania (BoA) was funded by the European Commission for the first time through Instrument of Pre-Accession funds, and was managed by Banca d'Italia in cooperation with Banque de France. The three central banks were involved in the Project for 20 months. In the first place a gap analysis was conducted on BoA's operating procedures - comparing them with Eurosystem best practices - and corrective actions were identified and agreed upon in order to bring BoA's structural functions closer to EU standards. Banking supervision, financial literacy, statistics, payment systems, interbank money market and the EU integration process were the sectors of intervention. Then, on the basis of the results of the gap analysis, a number of technical assistance activities were organized, such as workshops, seminars, conferences and practical training activities, together with study visits to both Banca d'Italia and Banque de France. The Twinning was extended by 2 months beyond the 18 months initially foreseen; during the extension, starting from the results achieved by the Twinning, guidelines were defined for future developments in each sector and additional actions defined that could allow BoA to come closer to EU standards.

 

The official Twinning closing ceremony was held in Tirana on 16 July 2012, in the presence of representatives of the Albanian government and financial system. The event provided an opportunity to illustrate the contribution of the Project to strengthening the BoA's methodologies and working practices.