EBRD mission to diagnose financial watchdog's needs for supervisory technology solutions

Representatives of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) are currently working with Romania's Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) on a mission to diagnose and assess the needs for supervisory technology solutions to be next adopted by the financial watchdog, ASF president Alexandru Petrescu announced on Tuesday."I am confident that we will reach a level of digitalization that will put us ahead of any possible incidents, of economic damage, so that the Authority will be more in a position to correct and recommend and less in a position to find various types of economic failures, to call them that," Alexandru Petrescu declared at the Stock Exchange listing ceremony of the bond issue of company Autonom.The mission represents a diagnostic exercise for the IT tools used in the insurance supervision activity. At the end of this consultancy project carried out with EBRD financing, recommendations based on similar practice will be made to improve the IT system needed for insurance supervision.Petrescu also spoke about the RON 98.6 million digital transformation project submitted for financing at the end of last year at the call for projects under the Smart Growth, Digitalization and Financial Instruments Program (PoCIDIF), Priority 2, and is intended to redefine the way ASF carries out its activity and interacts with the non-banking financial market.Once it is assessed and accepted for funding, the project titled "Digitalizing Access for Citizens and Companies to Investments by Ensuring a Sustainable Financial Market" will represent a significant step in modernizing and streamlining the regulatory, authorization, supervision and control tasks of the ASF, including petitions and alternative dispute resolution activities, as well as in the area of financial education.The initiative comes in response to the need for the digital transformation of internal work processes, identified in all of ASF's business functions, and to the new challenges in the process of adopting the European regulatory framework that supports the integration of new concepts regarding digital finance and sustainable finance.The general aim of the three-year project is to implement an integrated IT system that will support the ASF in its efforts to develop and diversify electronic public services to the business environment, public administration and the general public through internal, digitally optimised processes.At the same time, the implementation of this project will allow ASF to more promptly respond to the challenges of the permanently evolving financial market, as well as to the requirements to align with the key priorities arising from the European regulatory framework.