dimitar radev : recent achievements in resolving bulgaria's banking sector issues address by mr dimitar radev, governor of the bulgarian national bank, at a forum of the association of banks in bulgaria on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its foundation, sofia, 24 may 2017. * * * dear colleagues, first of all, i would like to congratulate you on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of your association. during this, sometimes turbulent, period the association proved itself not only as a branch organization supporting its members in their banking business, but also as a reliable and reputable partner to public authorities and institutions, including bnb. we highly appreciate this role. it was also demonstrated in the best of ways in the implementation of the measures in the banking sector after the turmoil in 2014. in the short period after it we went together a long way. as a central bank, we focused on improving supervision and building a reliable institutional framework for resolving banking sector issues. undoubtedly, however, our most important joint effort was the asset quality review and the stress test conducted last year. an exercise unprecedented in its scale that was a real challenge and a test not only for the central bank, but for our banking system as a whole. only two days ago, our achievements in the banking sector were a subject of an objective and independent discussion. this happened at the consideration and approval of our financial system assessment at the highest possible professional forum for such discussions – the executive board of the imf. the conclusions from this discussion are categorical. progress is achieved in the implementation of all measures we launched in 2015. supervision is in a better condition. as a result of the asset quality assessment we have a clearer picture and high quality data of bank impairment practices and collateral valuations. our banking sector is generally stable and with high capital adequacy and liquidity. certainly, those things are well known in the banking sector. the discussion two days ago provided a platform so things can be made visible for those outside the banking sector as well. i must immediately stress that the discussion reached yet another important conclusion, which we are well – perhaps even better – aware of than external observers, namely, that we need to consolidate the achieved progress. i would sum this up in the following way : we have made a definite progress ; however, even more remains to be done. and this is what we are currently focusing on. all our actions will be anchored in our legislative mandate which is : price stability

. the advantages of dedicated interfaces are considerable – they have a higher degree of security, speed and are capable of accepting a large number of simultaneous requests. however, the use of dedicated interfaces also presents a great deal of challenges – their development is a costly and complicated process which requires coordination between various units of the banks, their external developers, and the providers of the new services. main priority is ensuring the security of the processes, without compromising their functionality. insofar as the legal provisions of delegated regulation ( eu ) 2018 / 3893 are more general, its practical application raises many issues that require additional clarification. to this end, in 2019 4. the european banking authority ( eba ) established a working group on apis under psd2 within this group, representatives of the eba, the national competent authorities, the european commission, and the european central bank consult the market participants ( banks, third party providers and industry organisations ) and identify potential practical implementation problems and possible solutions thereof. based on the consultations, by 31 july 2021 the eba has published clarifications on 31 issues relating to the practical application of the requirements for apis. with the aim of converging the supervisory practices among the member states of the european union, in june 2020 the eba published its opinion on obstacles under article 32 ( 3 ) of the regulatory technical standards on strong customer authentication and common and secure open standards of communication ( eba / op / 2020 / 10 ) 5. the work on the raised issues is still going on via the q & as published by the eba6. the bulgarian national bank, in its capacity as a regulator, has active communications with the market participants with the aim of improving the functionality of the dedicated interfaces already 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches built by the banks in the country. the process is developing in line with the european progress and in compliance with the legal framework, the opinions and clarifications published by the eba. the first authorised in bulgaria providers of the two new payment services started their activities in 2020. in conclusion, we can sum up that the trends in europe are related to the development of a single european payments infrastructure based on common standards and instruments, aiming to ensure a pan - european scope and reach. instant payments, which are in a process of introduction also in bulgaria, open banking, and the increasing use of mobile technologies are topical issues both in the country and in the european union, issues that