In every meeting with you, I will highlight the need of strengthening the control on the business of the institutions you are governing. In addition to the fact that only this way the personal philosophy of each of you with regard to the development of the institution will come true, this process is vital to the well-functioning and safety of its business, even more given its rapid growth. In this context, the control structures should act rightly and extend to all the bank’s activities. Given the absence of a good collection, processing and reporting process of the business data, the control process on the institution’s activity finds itself jeopardized. The process of the banking sector’s data collection and processing has improved over the recent years as a result of investments in modern technological systems. In many cases, however, it is observed that the adoption of these systems is made only partially and hastily. Their full potential is not used and the banks’ personnel may not be fully familiar to their use; hence, weakening the necessary human control on these systems. Consequently, the control process on the institution’s activity is segmented, and the process of data collection, processing and reporting at the required quality and time is hampered. As a result, you being heads of commercial banks and us the system’s regulatory authority, risk to take decisions on data which are not fully accurate and furthermore are “old”. Being present in different banks and in different levels, a final solution should be found to this issue.
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.