PRESS RELEASE
Decisions by the Supervisory Council, 22 December 2021

On 22 December 2021, in addition to the decision to keep the policy rate unchanged, at 0.5%, and overnight deposit and overnight lending rates at the Bank of Albania, at 0.1% and 0.9%, respectively. In addition to this Decision, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania reviewed and decided to:

• Approve amendments to the Regulation "On Capital Adequacy Ratio”

The adopted amendments aim to further approximate the regulatory framework with the European directives on capital requirements for credit risk and the counterparty credit risk, by also taking into consideration the specific features of the Albanian banking system developments. The amendments were prepared with the technical assistance of the Bank of Italy, in the framework of the Twinning Project in the years 2019-2021, focusing on the approximation of the regulatory framework of the Bank of Albania with the EU acquis.

• Approve amendments to the Regulation "On Consumer Credit and Mortgage Credit”

The amendments aims to provide a heightened harmonisation of the Regulation with the European Directives, with a view to improve the regulatory authority's requirements on consumer protection.

• Approve the Regulation “On the function of the AIPS EURO system for the payment of domestic transfers for clients in Euro” and “On the internal organisation of the function of the Albanian Interbank Payments System - AIPS and AIPS EURO”

The adopted Regulations aim to support the domestic payment system operation in Euro and are the finalisation of a long-standing project undertaken by the Bank of Albania in collaboration with commercial banks in the country, formalizing thus the rules on system operation. In addition to regulating the function of the system, they also deal with commissions that banks may charge their clients for Euro payments.

By approving these Regulations and the by rendering the domestic infrastructure of Euro payments operational, the Bank of Albania and the banking system have fulfilled another action plan in compliance with the National Strategy for Small Value Payments (2018-2023).

• Approve the Regulation “On reporting the balance sheet items of credit institutions and financial monetary institutions”

The Regulation fulfils the framework of compiling monetary statistics in full compliance with the most advanced international standards. The new Regulation is part of the institutional engagement of the Bank of Albania to approximate the regulatory base in the field of statistics with the European Union acquis. In a practical sense, its main goal is the full approximation with Regulation No.  2021/379 of the European Central Bank of 22 January 2021 on the balance sheet items of the monetary financial institutions sector (recast) (BQE/2021/2).

• Approve the Guideline “On reporting foreign exchange transactions”

The Guideline has been revised in order to fulfil the size of data that is derived by the Bank of Albania from market operators in order to further improve the standardisation and reporting process of foreign exchange transactions.

The Supervisory Council was also informed on daily functional and operational activities of the Bank of Albania.