Ardian Fullani: The development of the financial market and money market in Albania Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the General Assembly of the Dealers Association, Tirana, 25 October 2007. *  *  *  Mr. Chairman Distinguished Guests, It is a great pleasure to be here amongst old and new friends and colleagues. I have dearly welcomed the reorganization and reactivation of the Albanian Association of Dealers, and the attempts made by its new board to affiliate ACI-Financial Market Association. I am confident that this reactivation will promote, above all, the market development, education and professional training of new members. I deem that the meetings of the Dealers Association is a good opportunity to share with you some thoughts and concerns regarding the development of the Albanian financial market in general and the money market in particular. I would like to emphasize that the interbank money market is the starting point to the transmission mechanism, driven by base interest rate change. Currently it is the most important channel of transmitting monetary policy decisions to the economy. I have to remind you that where you realize the profit, the Bank of Albania implements the monetary policy, whose efficiency depends directly on your capability to maximize profit in this market. This policy is based on the assumption that market participants are rational and their primary purpose is profit maximization under the conditions of a competitive environment.
One specific concern that some have expressed about Basel II’s applicability in emerging markets is that banks with more basic risk management systems will rely on external credit ratings issued by rating agencies under Basel II’s standardised approach to credit risk. In some emerging markets, there may still be few, if any, rated companies. The Committee has been mindful of this concern. If supervisors are uncomfortable with the use of external ratings in their countries, they may opt to weight all corporate claims at 100%, while sovereigns and banks can be risk weighted according to the risk scores of export credit agencies. This eliminates the dependence on ratings issued by external credit agencies. Indeed, our discussions with colleagues and counterparts from countries outside the Committee, including India, as I mentioned, have been instrumental in addressing other concerns in the capital framework. Thanks to our consultations, we have endeavoured to address several other broad issues in the new framework, including the document’s apparent complexity and the consistency of its application internationally, which I will set out now. Complexity One inevitable by-product of designing a comprehensive three-pillar framework with a range of options for different circumstances is increased complexity. The members of the Basel Committee certainly recognise that it is far easier to enforce a simple rule than a complicated one.