“The work is almost completed in Chapter 9 – Financial Services, and we expect that by the end of next year or possibly if there is an influx of new regulations for harmonization, by the end of 2023 we will complete activities in this chapter, “said the head of the Working Group for Chapter 9 – Financial services, Ana Vlahović at the constitutive session of the Working Group for that chapter held today.
Vlahović reminded that the European Commission stated in this year’s Report for Montenegro that moderate readiness was achieved within the chapter Financial Services and certain progress was achieved.
She expressed satisfaction with the fact that in the period from March 2020 to September 2021, for the first time, an external, independent assessment of the quality of assets of all banks on the Montenegrin market was performed in Montenegro, which was a recommendation of the European Commission in previous years.
“The results of the assessment confirmed the stability of the banking sector of Montenegro, satisfying the quality of assets and capital adequacy of the domestic banking system,” said Vlahović.
As she explained, the Central Bank has already implemented one of the two suggestions from the current EC Report for Montenegro in 2021, which were given for the future reporting period.
At the constitutive session, the Rules of Procedure of the Working Group were adopted and the dynamics of work on the preparation of Montenegro’s EU Accession Program 2022-2023, as well as the revision of the Roadmap for fulfilling the closing benchmarks in Chapter 9 – Financial Services.
It was stressed that the priority of supervisory and regulatory institutions in the field of financial services – the Central Bank of Montenegro, the Insurance Supervision Agency and the Capital Market Commission, in order to strengthen institutional capacity and thus fulfill the fifth closing benchmark, will be observer status at the European Competent Authorities – EBA, EIOPA and ESMA.
The working group for this chapter was established by the Government Decision on September 16, 2021 and has 15 members.
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