You must re-evaluate the securities’ portfolio quality, in particular that in foreign currency, in order to attain the optimum characteristics of safety and tradability. In addition, the portfolio of placements in foreign currency in the form of deposits or related products with international financial institutions should have as its main objective the safety of the investment and the adequacy of maturity term. In a broader context, you should reassess the adequacy of certain indicators’ level in terms of differences in maturity terms and the type of currency of assets and liabilities. Assets’ quality, which is mainly affected by the quality of loan portfolio, remains a constant risk to the banking business in general. The reduced quality of assets does not only impair the institution’s income, but also harms its liquidity position. In the case of the Albanian banking sector, the loan portfolio quality has been decreasing, although at gradual rates, and the situation is presented as entirely manageable. The rapid growth of credit and the challenges certain sectors of the economy that have been lent significantly may be faced with, are factors that will continue to exert pressure on the loan quality in the near future. Hence, it is crucial for you to implement a policy of rapid detection of non-performing loans and promptly create reserve funds. It is for this reason that the Bank of Albania will increase the frequency of controls and the efficiency in monitoring and checking this process.
Should this happen, the MAS will take tough enforcement actions for breaches of our regulatory requirements. Where laws are broken, we will also not hesitate to refer these to the law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution. 23. Last year, we announced the centralization of our enforcement function into a single department. The team in our Enforcement Department will deepen our capabilities in investigative work that were previously undertaken by prudential supervisors. A centralised enforcement function in MAS will also allow us to take a holistic approach to “follow the funds” should these cut across different types of entities in our financial sector. 24. Let me now highlight the fourth key element of our AML/CFT framework: International Cooperation and Partnerships. 25. I have mentioned Singapore’s commitment to the international efforts to combat ML/TF risks. We fully support the important work of various international organisations including the FATF. In addition, it is important to have close supervisory co-operation between financial regulators and we hope to expand on our supervisory cooperation network. Another area which we will strengthen is our partnership with the financial industry. 26. While law enforcement and regulatory authorities have wide powers, the financial industry has an “on the ground” vantage point with front-line knowledge of business and clients. It is hence advantageous to adopt a collaborative “eco-system” approach to holistically deal with 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  ML/TF risks. Such a partnership should be as inclusive as practicable – involving law enforcement agencies, regulator and the industry.