Also, the objectives under the IPA-2009 project on “Regional statistical cooperation programme for the Balkans countries” were successfully completed and project coordinators have commended the Bank of Albania. Other (research, human resources, communication and transparency, integration process) In addition to fulfilment of legal duties, the Bank of Albania is committed to attaining other objectives that help in completing a modern central bank’s role in economy. Bank of Albania intensified its research and academic activities in international arena during 2012. Worth of note is the 10th International Conference on “Monetary Policy: From the past to the present”, which was coordinated with other activities in the framework of the 100th anniversary of Albania’s Independence. Also, through the Institute of Economic Studies, we have promoted the broad interest of Albanian and foreign researchers, and have organised two regional workshops. Since some years ago, the Bank of Albania has put on focus of its development plan, the improvement of bridges of communication with the public and enhancement of transparency. During 2012, we continued to complete the published information and diversify it according to target audience. We built up contacts with the media and intensified our efforts in financial education, aiming to increase financial literacy and clearly transmit the Bank of Albania’s messages. The Bank of Albania was an active participant in fulfilment of obligations arising from the SAA, Central European Free Trade Agreement, and other national commitments. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  International authorities have assessed the Bank of Albania’s work progress as positive.
Strengthening the ethical culture of financial services should therefore reduce the volume of bad behavior we have been seeing. Some of the skeptics say, “Prove it.” I confess that proof is hard to come by. Yet, I am not alone in the fundamental belief that a strong ethical culture will lead to better behavior. A 2010 Corporate Executive Board survey of more than 500,000 respondents shows a widespread  1  To call enforcement traditional is not to say that it is static. Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, recently recommended that Congress create new criminal liability for bank officers who were in a position to detect and deter illegal conduct, but failed to do so. That is, individual executives could be criminally liable for failings within their organization without specific bad intent. See Eric Holder, Remarks on Financial Fraud Prosecutions at NYU School of Law, September 17, 2014. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  view that corporations with strong ethical cultures experience less misconduct. 2 This makes intuitive sense even in the absence of empirical proof. 3 Further, the natural tendency to go with the intuitive is bolstered by the potential benefit of a reduction in enforcement actions against financial services firms, and by a healthy change in the public perception of the financial services industry. And, of course, there is ready evidence for the contrapositive view.