ASF announces the approval of the digital transformation project worth RON 96.4 million

Bucharest, 1 April 2025 – The Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) announces the approval of the funding for the digital transformation project of the institution, submitted in December 2024 under the call for projects related to the Smart Growth, Digitalization and Financial Instruments Program (PoCIDIF), which aims to redefine the way in which the ASF conducts its business and interacts with the non-bank financial market.

The project, entitled "Digitizing Access to Investment for Citizens and Companies by Ensuring a Sustainable Financial Market - D A C C I A PIFS", has a total value of RON 96.4 million and a three-year implementation period.

The implementation of this important project represents a significant step in modernizing and streamlining ASF's regulatory, authorization, supervision and control functions, including the petitions and alternative dispute resolution activities, as well as in the area of financial education. The number of annual users of the project is estimated at over 160,000.

"The digitization of the Financial Supervisory Authority is one of my priorities, set since taking office. I am confident that this project, the first to be financed by European funds at the level of the institution, will make a significant contribution, through the creation of new digital tools, both to the transformation and modernization of ASF and to improving the transparency, efficiency and accessibility of the services offered to consumers and the non-banking financial sector. I would like to thank my colleagues from the Authority, who have contributed professionally to the development of the project, as well as the specialists of the Authority for the Digitization of Romania for their support in the development of the specific documentation", said Alexandru Petrescu, the ASF President.

The initiative comes in response to the need for digital transformation of internal work processes identified across all business functions of ASF and to new challenges in the process of adopting the European regulatory framework supporting the objective of integrating new concepts on digital and sustainable finance.

"As I have said since I took office as First Vice-Chairman of ASF, I have two priorities - transparency and digitization of the institution. If the first year in office was dedicated to the transparency approach, this year we are focusing on the digitalization process of the Authority. The approval of the ASF digitization project is a decisive and particularly important moment for our institution and for the entire non-banking financial sector. As a project manager, I am confident that this initiative will trigger a major reform, with impact both internally, by modernizing processes and workflows, and externally, in the interaction with consumers and market participants", said Gabriel-Ioan Avrămescu, First Vice President of ASF, project manager.

The overall objective of the project is the implementation of an integrated information system that will support ASF in its efforts to develop and diversify the electronic public services offered to the business environment, public administration and the general public through internal processes optimized by digital technologies.

The implementation of this project will also allow ASF to respond more promptly to the challenges of the evolving financial market, benefiting from the advantages of new technologies.

The benefits of the implementation of this wide-ranging digitization project are multiple, among which we mention:

• Improving the quality of services offered to business and citizens and expanding the offer of online services;
• Efficiency of the ASF's public communication on the non-banking financial market and in relation with the relevant international authorities - ESMA, EIOPA;
• Reduce the costs/consumption of resources - material, human, financial - for the resolution of requests addressed to ASF by supervised entities;
• Streamlining and aligning the operational flow at the level of the institution with modern tools used at the European level, by digitizing the flow of internal analysis and efficient allocation of resources to activities with added value for the achievement of the institution's objectives;
• Optimization of the supervisory activity at the level of the entity active on the market, by building an integrated database across the three sectors regulated and supervised by ASF;
• Supporting data-driven regulatory activity in the non-bank financial market by making better use of the large volumes of data collected;
• Achieving a higher degree of transparency of ASF's activity and access of regulated entities to the services offered by ASF, as well as increasing their satisfaction and confidence in the work of the institution;
• Increasing the degree of data protection and security of information processed by ASF in the fulfillment of its object of activity and ensuring compliance with national and international standards and regulations;
• Streamlining the institutional response to market developments, legislative changes, extension of powers and the adoption of new regulatory/authorization/supervision/control standards and procedures facilitated by digital technologies.

As a preparatory phase for implementation, the project will go through the pre-contracting and finalization of the steps in order to sign the grant application in a very short time.