So, at year-end 2004, 3491 persons were employed at the Albanian banking system, from 2816 persons in the previous year. This constitutes a growth of 24% per year and expresses clearly the priority the banks are giving to the enhancement of human resources, as a necessary condition for growing the activity in the future. •  These developments indicate an improved perception, not only by banks but also by businesses and households for the investing environment in Albania, encouraged even by the sustainable macroeconomic environment. The annual increase of the number of employees that work at the banking industry by about 24%, versus 26% of the previous year is a logical outcome of the positive developments in the banking sector. An important role in these developments has been played by the Bank of Albania, in terms of creating a favourable climate for the development of business and the economy. We may highlight here:  •  The monetary policy followed in the recent years has always aimed at cutting the interest rates, with a slight change in 2006, intending to keep inflation rate under control. This has impacted on the establishment of a stable business climate, where the business plans and decisions are not jeopardised by the insecurity of inflationary erosion. •  Since some years the Bank of Albania has been committed to create an updated payment infrastructure, so that the banking system is open and closer to customer relations.

Some incidents during the recent market turbulence revealed issues around members’ processing capacity, underlining the value in member-level testing to ensure that participants can always support the delivery of the network benefits from the smooth operation of the infrastructure. 6  BIS Review 130/2007  (ii)  Ensure effective international cooperation in oversight and operations, and coordination in risk assessment activities  44 The second main challenge is to allow market participants to reap the benefits of globalisation, while ensuring that the risks are adequately controlled. An extended and highly connected network can simultaneously be both robust and fragile: robust, because risks may be more effectively shared and dispersed across the system; fragile in that major risks can flow more rapidly through the system. 45 Naturally, market participants have been pushing hard for the removal of obstacles to efficient cross-border settlement and barriers to the seamless cross-currency management of liquidity. Central banks have been urged to consider accepting foreign collateral or implementing other arrangements to facilitate cross-currency liquidity management. Some already do so – the Bank of England, for instance, routinely accepts euro-denominated collateral in its operations – and a recent report from the CPSS encouraged other central banks to consider accepting foreign collateral, at least in emergency circumstances. The Eurosystem has recently begun to explore new options. 46 Provision of cross-border collateral arrangements may entail a high degree of coordination and cooperation between central banks internationally, for instance in opening custody and correspondent accounts, and sharing information on local infrastructures and market practices.