The ECB exercises banking supervision in cooperation with the national authorities by establishing a common approach to ongoing supervision, pursuing harmonized supervisory activities and corrective measures and ensuring consistent implementation of regulations and supervisory policies. The ECB has the powers to conduct supervisory review, on-site inspections and investigations, to issue or withdraw banking licenses, to assess the acquisition and disposal of qualified holdings by banks, to ensure compliance with the EU prudential rules, to set higher capital requirements (buffers) to counteract possible financial risks. The supervisory functions of the ECB are exercised by its Supervisory Board. By a decision of the BNB Governing Council, Mr. Radoslav Milenkov, BNB Deputy Governor in charge of the Banking Supervision Department, is the BNB’s representative in the ECB’s Supervisory Board, having the same rights and obligations as all other board members, including a voting right. The ECB’s Supervisory Board drafts the decisions that are later adopted by the ECB’s Governing Council, following the so-called non-objection procedure. The ECB’s Governing Council also adopts other decision on the SSM general framework, without applying the non-objection procedure. There is no Bulgarian representative in the ECB’s Governing Council, as it consists of the members of the ECB’s Executive Board and the governors of central banks of euro area Member States. The ECB is responsible for the supervision of the institutions determined as significant in all aspects of their activities, including off-site supervision, on-site inspections, the so-called horizontal functions: supervisory methodology, assessment of models, licenses, assessment of reliability and suitability of banks’ management board members.

Norges Bank’s Executive Board decided in June that the key policy rate should be in the interval ¾-1¾ per cent in the period to the publication of the next Monetary Policy Report on 28 October 2009, unless the Norwegian economy is exposed to new major shocks. In the assessment forming the basis for its monetary policy decision of 23 September, the Executive Board placed emphasis on underlying inflation, which is now below the inflation target. The krone has appreciated and will, in conjunction with continued low imported inflation, contribute to keeping inflation below target in the year ahead. This suggests that the key policy rate should be kept low for a period ahead. Growth in the Norwegian economy has picked up at a more rapid pace than was expected a few months ago. High activity in the oil industry and monetary and fiscal policy measures have contributed to supporting demand for goods and services. Employment is stable and it appears that unemployment will be considerably lower than expected, despite the decline in manufacturing and the building and construction industry. Low interest rates are contributing to renewed growth in household consumption. Higher capacity utilisation and low productivity growth may increase upward pressure on costs, pointing towards somewhat higher inflation and suggesting that the key policy rate should be raised earlier than projected in the June Monetary Policy Report. On balance, it was appropriate to keep the key policy rate unchanged at this meeting, although the Executive Board considered the alternative of increasing the key policy rate.