Ardian Fullani: Financial policy issues of deposit insurance schemes in SouthEast Europe Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the regional technical seminar on “Financial Policy Issues of Deposit Insurance Schemes in South-East Europe”, Tirana, 30 May 2006. *  *  *  Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my pleasure to open the proceedings of this regional seminar on “Financial Policy Issues of Deposit Insurance Schemes in South-East Europe”. I thank the Convergence Program of the World Bank and the Deposit Insurance Agency for the cooperation. I am convinced that this seminar will be valuable for exchanging new experience and ideas in fulfilling the missions of your institutions. First of all allow me to emphasize that the banking system is important not only for being an integral part of the financial system but also for the stability it brings to a country, moving its economy forwards and leading to economic growth. The Bank of Albania, as the country’s central bank, has the main target to maintain price stability. Along with this target, the Bank of Albania is exclusively responsible for licensing and supervising commercial banks and some other non-bank institutions involved mainly in micro-credit and in foreign exchange business. The legal and regulatory ground of banking supervision is already complete and we are constantly working for its improvement. Also, the supervisory practice complies with best standards in this direction, aiming at being oriented according to banking activity risk, being efficient and proactive.

For example, through system-integrated capability, financial institutions can offer a wider range of services including bill payment and tax payment. Electronic money (E-money) is a new product that is now offered by many institutions, both banks and non-banks. All of the aforementioned products and services delivered with the help of IT and the effort on core-banking system integration require much more complex technology infrastructure which raises tendency to the use of IT Outsourcing services from external expertise. As a consequence, financial institutions can fully focus on core activities and become less concerned with not having a sophisticated level of IT expertise. However, financial institutions must be aware that risks from outsourced operations still fall under their responsibility even though they may not undertake IT operations by themselves.   As the use of IT becomes widespread, it appears that most Thai financial institutions are adopting international best practices as a framework to create a controlled environment and manage risks that might occur from IT related operations. As new security threats emerge, it becomes necessary to have adequate control mechanism to protect banks' information assets including hardware, software and data.   As we all know, after 9/11, this issue has become a global concern. Most financial institutions are aware of the need to have Business Continuity Management. The business continuity plan has to be established on an enterprise-wide basis with a thorough business impact analysis and risk assessment. It is more than just the recovery of technology; it is the recovery and continuity of business.