vitas vasiliauskas : the experience of the bank of lithuania in investing in china ’ s bond markets speech by mr vitas vasiliauskas, chairman of the board of the bank of lithuania, at the global summit on “ reserves management : navigating volatilities and the frontiers of innovation ”, beijing, 9 december 2019. * * * good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, it ’ s my pleasure to join you today. in terms of investing in china ’ s bond markets, the bank of lithuania has been one of the pioneers among the central banks in europe and beyond. we have also recently become the managers of the ecb ’ s renminbi portfolio. i suspect this is the main reason why i was invited to this summit. therefore, i do not want to dwell on things that you all are very well aware of. instead, i will focus on something you probably have not heard about – on the “ china experience ” of the bank of lithuania, describing how and why we “ went to china ”. later i will provide some remarks on the remaining obstacles for further involvement of institutional investors – such as ourselves. i will conclude by briefly discussing the overall prospects of renminbi internationalisation – the over - arching topic of our panel today. but, before moving on, let me just briefly mention a couple of points on the international role of the renminbi, which will show why the timing of our involvement in the chinese bond markets was not so self - evident. indeed, over the last few years, china has made progress in opening up the country ’ s financial sector. from lifting the caps on foreign ownership in financial sector institutions, to increasing access to its onshore market – china is making more renminbi - denominated assets available to foreign investors. but these achievements were enabled by one key turning point that came before the most recent developments. the major milestone, of course, was the addition of the renminbi into the imf ‘ s sdr basket in 2016. this was a historic event, signalling to global investors that china was emerging as a significant stakeholder in the global monetary and financial system. subsequently, international investors, particularly sovereign investors, became much more interested in china. in this context, the bank of lithuania was ahead of the curve in 2012. that year, we decided to become one of the first central banks to enter china ’ s onshore bond market. this decision had come well before the ren

vitas vasiliauskas : anti - money laundering and counter terrorist financing - from challenges to possibilities speech by mr vitas vasiliauskas, chairman of the board of the bank of lithuania, at the international conference anti - money laundering and counter terrorist financing : from challenges to possibilities, vilnius, 1 october 2020. * * * dear market participants, regulators, supervisors, financial intelligence representatives, a warm welcome to our international conference on anti - money laundering and counter terrorist financing. the virtual event hosted by the bank of lithuania has been set up together with our partners from acams baltics chapter, fintech hub lt and the association of lithuanian banks. i sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to organising this conference despite the difficult circumstances. a number of high - profile european cases of the alleged systematic use of banks for money laundering have been reported over the last few years. some of these cases concern the nordicbaltic jurisdictions. although no serious breaches have been reported in lithuania ’ s financial system, this context affects the whole region, especially in terms of reputational risks. given the cross - border effects of such cases on integrity and resilience of domestic banking sectors, we are in need of close international cooperation – to which this conference will contribute. furthermore, important changes are taking place in the financial sector. novel business models are reshaping virtually every area of financial products and services. this creates new opportunities. but the ongoing disruption also poses substantial challenges and can open gaps in the regulatory perimeter. we thus need to stay alert and constantly search for new ways to update and improve our frameworks for anti - money laundering ( aml ) and counter terrorist financing ( ctf ). effective aml / ctf measures can go a long way in preventing and fighting financial crime. however, overly tight regulation, zero tolerance for any risk, and the prospect of harsh sanctions can result in de - risking. this is when financial institutions terminate business relationships with clients to avoid, rather than manage, risk. one practical example of this is the withdrawal of correspondent banking relations – a serious issue for the lithuanian financial sector. if taken to an extreme, de - risking can result in increased financial exclusion. it may also bring higher risk transactions out of the regulated system into more opaque, informal channels, and become even harder to monitor. in other words, de - risking poses an important risk to our financial systems. today ’ s panels on the aml / ctf development and the de - risking